Path to Becoming a Hero
by Brago12716
Summary: Izuku find Zen-Aku's mask while cleaning up the beach with All Might, watch as now Zen-Aku goes through the hero academia instead of Izuku. This is years after the end of Wild Force, enough time that people have forgotten about them and has now only turned to quirks for their powered heroes.
1. From Deku to Duke

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 1

From Deku to Duke

All men are not created equal, that one line is what drives the society that Izuku Midoriya lived in, a society where your status in life, whether intended or not, is determined by the power one possesses, a power that is unique to that person or that person's family, that power is called a quirk. Quirks are now the norm in the society and as such heroes have come about and soon the term heroes became a job to many, for other people it became less of a job but the underlining tone was still there, that the term hero has lost most of its original meaning, but how long will that last?

Since he was first told his quirk was supposed to manifest, Inko Midoriya, his mom, became nervous when it wasn't happening, so his mother took him to a specialist on the subject and told him the reason why he wasn't developing a quirk, he would never develop a quirk, that was how it was. Over eighty percent of the world now has a quirk, but that twenty percent is one of the people that don't have life so good, as time goes on and the advances of quirks go up, the more people that are powerless are looked down upon and some are bullied because of them being quirkless. One of the many reasons that Izuku is no longer friend with Katsuki Bakugo is because Bakugo went from being his young grade school friend to becoming Izuku's tormentor because he found out the boy was quirkless and so started calling the boy Deku, a worthless nobody in his eyes.

Izuku never lost hope though, going on to watch heroes, admire them, and even started and completed several journals for the future, hoping beyond hope that he could be a hero even without a quirk, study fighting maybe, workout and build his body muscle up to match it. That came crashing down when All Might, the number one hero told him that he can't be a hero without a quirk, his hopes and dreams were shattered after that, told that there were some villains that can't be fought against without power, his quirkless state would hindering him. Then a sludge monster attacked and held Bakugo hostage, and despite what the boy has done to him, Izuku couldn't just do nothing, so he jumped into the situation and tried to claw the boy out of the danger, despite him being powerless and quirkless, but they were saved by All Might.

For Izuku it was another reminder that he was powerless, that he would never be a hero, that is until All Might came before him on his way home to give up on his dream and told the boy his secret, told of how the boy inspired him to act to save them, and told him that he could do it. All Might would from that point on train up his body to be able to handle and contain his quirk, One For All, a quirk that can be passed from wielder to wielder, making a workout regimen for the boy and training up his body until he could handle that huge power load and not blow up.

To work out Izuku was told to clean the trash off the shores of Dagoba Municipal Beach Park, it wasn't too bad, training for ten months straight until he was strong enough to receive the quirk of the greatest hero ever, seven months have passed now and it was only three more until the deadline. The deadline was actually the entrance exams for the UA high school, the top hero school in the country that produced the world's greatest hero, and Izuku could already feel the great strength he was already feeling from the constant moving of trash on the beach piece after piece.

Izuku was cleaning today as well, this day was a special day though, because this day was the day he saw something after lifting a refrigerator into a truck to take the trash away, what he saw was something shiny, sparkling on the reflected sunlight that hit the water just right to shine. Picking it up, Izuku noticed that it wasn't just any ordinary object, it was a mask that reminded him of a wolf's head, it must have gotten caught on something on the bottom of the fridge and just now got loose enough to be seen by anyone who was paying attention to what was around them. It was black in the base color, pale gold, almost white, eyebrow lines above the eye hole that left the eye, between the eyes at the top of the bridge of the nose and even the actual eyebrows open to the view of everyone to see, the golden edge at the corners of socket only enhanced the fact. Golden teeth with sharp fangs appeared to be what occupied the mouthpiece of the fancy design, would only accent whatever mouth would be behind those teeth to give off an intimidating appearance, only solidifying the idea that this was a mask was expensive and pricy to everyone. The final noticeable feature that submitted this fact was the two ruby red eyebrow lines just above the brow furrow with a purple jewel shining just above them at the bottom of a golden indent that curved around the top of the mask's head, all in all the mask didn't fit in the dump.

"Come on young Midoriya, move it," All Might yelled from behind him to get him motivated before seeing the mask the young boy held, "what is a mask like that doing in a dump," he asked as he went from all muscle to being a skinny skeleton thin looking man with hollow eyes.

"I don't know, I just found it on the bottom of the fridge I just moved," Izuku stated as he turned the mask over and over trying to see any kind of markings of ownership on it but found nothing, over his shoulder All Might was doing the same thing and didn't see anything either.

"I guess it was stolen and placed there by a thief," All Might guessed and the young boy looked to him, "sometimes a thief hides his loot before capture in a place that the authorities won't look for, trusting the place not to be disturbed, sadly it looks to be recently put there, I'd say eight months."

"That means he was caught and got a long sentence if he hasn't come back to pick it up yet," Midoriya theorized, his mentor nodded as they went back to looking over the mask, "it doesn't appear to be tagged with markings of ownership, do we turn it over to the police to find them?"

"Normally yes, but this mask is a very expensive object, someone could easily con us if they neglected to file a missing report if the police say they found a mask like that, so let me ask the police I trust to check the missing items list, in the meantime take it home and hide it," the man said.

"You sure, because this seems really expensive, what if I get mugged while walking home from the beach, not all of the roads are seen from all angles, I could easily be mugged and robbed, not to mention the house isn't the most secure place in the world, if someone finds this thing then…"

"Shut up," All Might interrupted him before he could ramble any further, "just don't tell anybody and you won't get mugged for a valuable position," he chopped the kid in the head for his idiocy, "we're done for the day, so go on and head home, keep that mask safe until I tell you to."

All Might walked off after that leaving the young boy to head home by himself, putting the mask in his backpack and making sure it was secure, he headed home and after saying hello to his mother and telling her how tired he was, he went to his room and went to bed to sleep some. This was one of his rare days where when he got home he could just go to sleep without any extra workout, even he knew that if he overtaxed his body too much then there would be no hope of this workout program succeeding, so he'd never become a hero like he wanted. He wasn't too tired though to keep looking at the mask that he found, it wasn't really all that hard to see how expensive it looked, it had a sort of appeal to it, almost like it was coxing him to do something, he didn't know what and as he kept staring at it he felt so sleepy.

As he fell asleep though the mask's eyes looked to be about to glow, but he didn't pay attention to it and just let his hands fall with the mask and it seemed that the mask fell in a way that it landed on his face, as if the mask itself guided it to land when the boy dropped it while he drifted off. So he was unaware of what the changes to his very being had gone through, unaware of what actually happened to him himself, because that night he died, Izuku Midoriya died as the mask sucked his life-force from him and replaced his body with a form truly befitting a being he turned into.

The being had learned his lesson from previous hosts, make it to where you are the only one in there instead of just him, this in turn unclouded your mind and made it to the point where all your memories were fine and intact so that he could remember who he was and what he can do. It also helps that the inner spirit that his own spirit fought against wasn't the exact opposite of himself, meaning that the conflicting wills didn't fight inside him and 'tangle the wires' so to speak, and so the only will inside the body beneath the mask was his own will. It also helped that there were no mental or physical barriers that he had to get past, if the host was strong willed enough, or stronger than him physically, than he would not be able to do this and would be forced to be consumed instead of the one he hoped to consume, thankfully he was stronger. There was an added bonus to this as well, now this being could fully take the memories of the one he absorbed and gain intelligence of his surroundings as well, or since this place had what is called 'quirks', he could actually allow himself some freedom that he hadn't thought of before.

* * *

The next morning

The next morning the being awoke at the crack of dawn with a snap of his eyes, he set straight up with no effort and looked around the room he was now in, it was the same as his memories he got from the boy, so he swung his legs off of the bed and let his armored feet hit the floor. To avoid suspicion, he'd have to change out of his dark armor and possibly alter some clothes the boy has to better fit his own taller and more warrior-like body, but first he had to put on an act, he stood from the bed and let his weight shift from foot to foot to test his body. If he was right he'd be able to play the part of the boy well enough to trick that blonde oaf into giving him his power, but he had to do it without any flaw, thankfully he was good at everything he tried, but he'd never tried acting before so he had to rehearse a bit, so he did.

Though he'd obvious change a few things, such as this 'Kaachan' who needed to know that this new 'Deku', wasn't going to be bullied so easily, he didn't look up to this boy who thought he was all that because he knew the truth, he's less than a speck of dust on a grain of sand on a beach. The boy's own nervousness was also something that he'd have to change, gradually at first, then when he got into UA, change drastically to show how serious he was at being a hero, giving him more freedom to do what he wants once he has this hero license and then leave this place. After he traveled with Merrick for some time he's gotten use to travelling and would like to see what all has changed over the many years since then, especially now that this world has advanced somewhat with the introduction of powers wielded by most of the planet's population.

So he practiced and practiced by sitting down cross legged in the floor of his room and did mental image training, this was common for warriors that knew that mental training to hone their mind's eyes were more effective in combat than those that only focused on their physical attributes. So he used that to his advantage and went through mental training quickly before allowing himself to leave his room, it took some time but he eventually became accustomed to the way that the boy was seen as and developed a nice plan to ensure his survival, that was the hard part over with.

So he made sure to take off all of his dark armor and began to put on a pair of pajamas that the boy was seen wearing, they were far to small for him and if he was attacked they would only hamper his movements, but forced them on and made himself look as if he was panicking. This was a key point to his plan, which was to present himself as Izuku Midoriya who suddenly developed a quirk that turned him into a wolf-like monster coated in dark grey fur and turned his eyes from green to amber, so he walked out looking panicked, and went to his 'mother'.

"Izuku, sweetie, your breakfast is getting cold," Inko called to her son as she began to fix up a breakfast for her son, though she was concerned with the amount that he requested some odd months ago, she eventually got used to it and was always ready to serve the large helpings.

"Um, mom," the being said in the most timid voice that he could muster and watched as she jumped and turned to him since she didn't recognize the voice that he now had, he put his hands up, "mom, it's me, Izuku," he was sure to widen his eyes and show her his fear to help out.

"Izuku," she said unsure before getting a good look at his clothes, she had seen him where those pajamas often, she dropped the ladle in her hands and let it fall to the floor with a clank as she ran to him and embraced him, "oh my baby, I'm so proud of you, you've finally gotten your quirk."

The being hugged the mother back and smiled, she then decided to begin altering his clothes, first was his school uniform, then she used that opportunity to go out and buy him a few new clothes, when asked what he prefers, he told her dark clothing to accent his dark fur, she agreed. Most of his wardrobe now was nothing but black and dark grays, a few pieces of white and silver though to just experiment with in case he got bored of the dark clothing, this was fine with him, and it was a good reason to him, at least that is what he voiced, he kept it just in case though.

The next day was another training day and when the being went to Dagoba Beach and met with All Might, who looked to the dark figure strangely, as if wondering who he was, so imagine his surprise when the being said, "All Might, it's me, I know I look different, but my quirk finally activated."

All Might turned to his muscle form in shock, "what," he bug eyed for a moment staring at him in shock at such a quirk activating, "incredible, is that quirk a mutation type," he asked approaching his trainee and walking around him, inspecting him to see what all he looked like everywhere.

The being chuckled, "yeah, it looks like it," he said as he lifted his arms and looked around himself as if he was seeing it for the first time, "though I don't think it's just a mutation type, it almost feels like a presence in my very being is pulling, trying to get me to use it and see what it is."

"Then do so, you'll be in a safe environment as long as I'm around, and as the symbol of peace and a pro hero, I can contain and perform emergency first aid if need be, so feel free to try pulling on this presence," All Might told him, he wanted to see what the quirk was as well. In truth he was also very curious about something else as well, the boy developed a quirk after being quirkless for so long, and while it isn't actually uncommon for late bloomers to develop one, it didn't mean that it came without cost of some sort, mainly their mental health.

"Very well," the being looked inward as if searching for something, waiting a few moments before bringing out his dagger flute, All Might looked shocked to see him summon something from the energy, since usual mutation quirks just offer some attribute enhancements, but this was new.

"Nice summoning young Midoriya," the symbol of peace gave a nice thumbs up at his student's achievement, then thought of a way to voice this next question, seeing as the boy's quirk didn't actually have an opening for him to eat, "how are you going to get nutrients if you can't eat?"

If he had a visible mouth, the being would frown at the man, "I think I have an idea," he said as he concentrated that same energy into his mouth, this was a trick he rarely had to do since his kind didn't eat in the traditional sense, cracks formed in where his teeth were and split apart. Eventually those cracks allowed him to open up part of his wolf face to where he could swallow food, then he closed his 'mouth' and looked to All Might, "it seems as though this energy, for lack of a better word, is able to be manipulated in different ways, I don't know how to use it though."

"Then that is what we'll work on, while getting rid of the trash we'll work on developing your quirk and seeing what all it can do," All Might stated before they began working on cleaning the beach, the being was able to go faster, longer, and lift more than Izuku could, so it went easier. With these factors in mind he cleaned up more in that day than in a month of Izuku cleaning the beach, and he didn't mind it, because when All Might wasn't' looking he'd eat some of the pollution cause by the trash, he was still that type of being after all.

* * *

Next school day

At Aldera Junior High, the class was in a buzz, while nobody really cared about Izuku because of his quirklessness, that didn't mean that he went unnoticed, so when he was late or absent from school, he was the talk of the school because despite everything else, he was never late or absent. This would be the first time he's ever been late to school since Katsuki Bakugo has ever known him, or absent seeing as how he hasn't gotten there yet and if he wasn't coming now then he'd not come at all, but that is when the most unexpected thing to ever happen happened right then.

There was a knock on the door to the classroom and it was when the teacher went to open the door to see who it was that his eyes bugged out, he was handed some forms and with a quick overview of them, he went back into the classroom and faced his class with a smile at the news. "Class," the teacher began, "I have some wonderful news for everyone, as you're aware, Izuku Midoriya was thought to be quirkless, well I've just received news about an astonishing development, his quirk has finally manifested itself and as such he has gone through some changes." The class began to mutter about itself at having the formerly quirkless boy get powers, though some were confused about it coming out this long in his life, but they didn't question it since quirks are still being studied and this could be the case, "now please welcome Izuku Midoriya."

In stepped what could only be described as a monster wearing the standard uniform for their school, a dark grey furred wolf monster coming in with his face like that of a completely solid black wolf mask, his eyes changed from green to amber and a foot long dark silver horn on his forehead. His feet were covered in black combat boots, his pants were black as well, his top consisted of a white button up shirt under a long black sleeved collard button up jacket, his hair went from green to silver, coming out behind his wolf mask-like face now, he looked so epic now.

"Hello, nice to see everyone again," his voice even changed to a gravelly like voice that sounded like he was growling as well, his amber eyes turned towards Katsuki Bakugo and he said, "nice to see you as well Kaachan," he said in the best friendly voice he could, it ticked the young boy off.

"CUT THE SHIT DEKU," Bakugo yelled at what used to be his childhood friend, "if you think you got some quirk that makes you less useless than before, it still doesn't matter, compared to me you're still useless, got that Deku," he asked as he glared at the being clad in dark colors.

"Whatever you say Kaachan," he said to avoid a confrontation with the boy, though there was no nervousness there, which didn't go unnoticed by said boy, but he couldn't really do anything about it, the only thing that he could do was sit there and watch as everyone flocked to him. They asked what his quirk was, what all he could do and how he got suddenly got it, his answers were, "don't have a name for the quirk yet, I'm trying to figure that out, and I've been training my body up in private to learn physical combat to get into UA, that's all I know about it."

His answers just pissed Bakugo off even more, "what does that matter, you think you can just get a quirk and now you can get into UA, there is still three months to pass, and everyone else has had years to get a handle on their quirks, why try when you're still going to fail Deku," he asked.

"Doesn't matter if I fail, all that matters is that I try, and if I don't get into UA, there are still other hero schools out there, the best is just one option," the being said back calmly and in that ruff voice, other students who would have laughed now nodded in acknowledgment at the statement.

Of course that just pissed the boy off more, and when it came time for the school day to end, Bakugo was going to confront this new Izuku after school, but before he could the other boy just left after the school day ended, leaving as quiet as a whisper, "dammit," Bakugo yelled out. That was the way for the rest of their time in the school, after the being would come and they would have class together, it would just disappear from sight when Bakugo tried to get a hold of him to talk, eventually he gave up though and decided to ignore his former friend instead.

* * *

Month later

It was now a month after that and All Might in his true form was walking out of his truck and heading to the beach, if he was right then young Midoriya should already be here ready to work as well, though why the newly wolf looking teen was doing just sitting down was beyond him. He was just sitting there on a trash pile with his right arm propped up on his right knee looking out over the clear beach, "wait a minute," All Might suddenly said and ran to the edge where the entire beach was seen and it was all clear, not a speck of trash was anywhere to be seen. "Hey, hey, holy crap kid, you even cleaned up outside the area I told you to, seriously, there's not one speck of trash left on this beach, and we still have two months left, you exceeded y expectations, holy… stinkin'… supercrap," he exclaimed while going to his muscle form.

"I guess that my body became stronger than what we though when I got my quirk, I was able to speed up the process by a lot of physical work then, and so now we can focus on me and my quirk instead of building up the physical body," he said as he jumped down to the beach.

"Excellent work, I had not thought you could do it in such a short amount of time, so now I have a present for you before we begin to focus solely on your quirk, it is time to pick a name out for your quirk, we can't just leave an unidentified quirk user running around," All Might informed.

"I already have that figured out, I've read some about a legend about beings that can do close to what I can do, horned beings called orgs, though since I only have one horn I though we could call my quirk duke org instead," the being suggested, at least that was not fully a lie about it.

"Awe, using a legend to name your quirk is interesting, it gives you extra weight to any achievement that you get and also makes you have to live up closer to that standard, are you sure," All Might asked and the being nodded, "then do you also have a good hero name ready?"

"I do," this was when the being should actually be given out some red flags to people, but this era of quirks seemed to have just covered the entire world in its own history and made all others almost inconsequential, "my hero name will now be Zen-Aku," the now named Zen-Aku stated.

"Good and evil eh, I get it, a play on the saying that good and evil are two sides of the same coin, very nicely named young Midoriya, or should I say, Zen-Aku," All Might put his hand out and the duke org took it and shook it, "you will be a wonderful successor to my power young man." The number one hero now reached up and plucked a hair from his head, "someone told me this once, there's a difference between being lucky and deserving, one's an accident, the other a reward, never get the two confused, take that to heart, this gift you earned with your own valiant efforts." He held out the hair strand to Zen-Aku, "eat this," there was startled confusion in the duke org's eyes, "to inherit my power, you've got to swallow some of my DNA, that's how it works," now the due org understood, he focused his energy and opened his mouth as he took the hair and ate it.

When he ate he felt the power surge through his body, anyone else not accustomed to energy of any type would not notice, but Zen-Aku did, he took the energy in stride and felt how powerful he was now, the combination of every other quirk that One For All has accumulated in that moment. The power was almost too much, if he was anyone else he would not be able to control the influx of power properly, but this was just an energy like any other, energy that he knew how to channel and manipulate at his will thanks to his years of training under his belt, it was incredibly easy.

"Now that you have my power we will begin to practice controlling it and your own quirk, first separately and then together," All Might stated as he walked the middle of the beach and left Zen-Aku to walk calmly to a few yards in front of him, "now let us train in this power of yours."

* * *

UA Entrance Exam

That had been two months ago, safe to say that Zen-Aku had already mastered the power of himself and has gotten a handle on One For All enough to be able to truly use forty percent, yet has pulled back on the power and has only let All Might know it was fifteen percent. To All Might he is now able to use his energy to summon his crescent blade and shadow phase from sight to travel great distances, ad that to his ability to use One For All and he'd be able to become a licensed hero sooner than expected, if he was at all lucky.

Now though he was in the place to make sure that he had that opportunity, UA High School, walking up the pathway to take the entrance exam to get into the school, and thanks to his time as playing Izuku, and his life as Zen-Aku, he knew exactly how to go about passing the tests. The written part of the test was easy to pass, while on his path of redemption with Merrick, they had become adept at 'hero work', so he knew the answers such as detain the villain quickly, ensure the safety of the civilians, and those type of questions, for the technical stuff he had Izuku's memories.

Now though was time for the practical and he was now sitting in the large auditorium beside his least favorite person really, someone who was so far removed from what a hero actually should be that it made him sick, but knew how to act when he growled, "what are you hero for Deku?"

"I thought I told you Kaachan, I'm going to be a hero and so I'm taking the entrance exam to get into UA, I've trained for months with my quirk and now I think it's ready to be tested in an exam like this," Zen-Aku stated and got a 'damn Deku' as the grumbling reply to the statement from his right.

The lights soon turned out and a large screen came on with the UA symbol on it, "what's up UA candidates, thanks for tunin' in to me, your school DJ," a man with yellow hair and a voice amplification type gadget came out, "c'mon and lemme hear ya," he roared to the crowd. His response was nothing at all, "keeping it mellow, huh, that's fine, I'll skip straight to the main show, let's talk about how this practical exam is gonna go down, okay, are you ready, yeah," he roared again with enthusiasm and again he was met with silence, absolute silence. "Like your application said, today you rockin' boys and girls will be out there conducting ten-minute mock battles in super-hip urban settings, gird your loins, my friends, after I drop the mic here, you'll head to your specified battle center, sound good," Present Mic asked them all.

"I see, they're splitting us up so we can't work with any of our friends," Bakugo muttered as he looked at his ticket and then to Zen-Aku's and got a look at where they are, the duke org did the same and saw that he was right, though to be honest it didn't matter to him regardless.

"Okay, okay, let's check out your targets, there are three types of faux villains in every battle center, you'll earn points based on their level of difficulty, so better choose wisely, your goal in this trial is to use your quirk to raise your score by shredding these faux villains like a mid-song guitar solo." As Present Mic said this a small animation played on the screen that showed a representation of what they would be doing, it wasn't really hard to guess after that, "but check it, make sure you're keep'n things heroic, attacking other examinees is a UA no-no, ya dig?"

Then stood a boy with glasses and blue hair, "excuse me, sir, but I have a question," a light shown on him, "on the printout you've listed four types of villains, not three, with all respect, if this is an error on official UA materials, it is shameful," he gestured to said handout. Then he put it down and put his fist to his chest, "we are exemplary students, we expect the best from Japan's most notable school," he brought down that fist and raised another, "a mistake such as this won't do," the boy said, impatient isn't he, nobody ever said the explanation was over.

"All right, all right, examinee number 7-1-1-1, thanks for calling in with your request," on screen came the fourth villain, "the fourth villain type is worth zero points, that guy's just an obstacle we'll be throwing in your way, there's one in every battle center," on screen a video animation played. "Think of it as a hurdle you should try to avoid, it's not that it can't be beaten, but there's kinda no point, I recommend my listeners try to ignore it and focus on the ones toppin' the charts," that part of the screen went off and turned back to the UA symbol, the test was easy to pass. "That's all I got for you today, I'll sign off with a little present of a sample of our school motto, as General Napoleon Bonaparte once laid down, 'a true hero is one who overcomes life's misfortunes,' mm-hm, now that's a tasty soundbite, you ready to go beyond, let's hear a PLUS ULTRA!"

They were all given the go ahead to go to the lockers and change into some workout clothes, so Zen-Aku changed out of his junior high uniform and changed into basically the same exact thing, black shoes, black pants, black shirt, and the only thing different was the lack of white undershirt. He was in battle center B, meaning he was paid with the boy that complained about the possible mistake, others were there too, but they didn't stand out to him, he popped his neck a bit and then crossed his arms as he watched everyone else prepare for what will be a big trial for them. He just had to get through this with only some effort, the problem was that zero pointer, there was obviously something different about that part of the exam, why pose something like that if it had no real value, this was to test their combat, so what exactly would a zero point bot give them.

"Right, let's start," Present Mic called out and the doors suddenly opened and while the others looked up in question, Zen-Aku shot forward, if he waited for the teacher to get done explaining, then he'd never get to see what he can do with his power as high as it's been in years.

Soon a green robot crashed through the wall of a building, it had one red eye, shields on its arms, machine guns, a single wheal for mobility, and a one painted in white, but in a flash it had no head from a crescent shaped blade summoned by Zen-Aku, as it was destroyed he kept running. If he went through the city in a straight line he would have ran to the center, meaning the largest amount should be there, scattered but there, and on the way he'd see more villain bots that he could dispatch, which was easier than what he thought, the one pointers were incredibly weak. The two pointers were the same color as the one pointers, but they had four legs and a tail while the head was long necked and had two eyes on both sides of it's head, so he quickly brought out his blade and made a downward slash that split it in half and ran right through it when done. The three pointers looked like big tanks with two five holed rocket launchers on top, big heavy arms, three eyes, a slit face mask looking bottom part of the jaw, and three wheals, the first of those was taken out by a horizontal slash from left to right as it too was passed.

"That's six points in twenty seconds," Zen-Aku commented to himself as he kept running before looking back and saw that some were splitting up and going in every which way to find villains to destroy, so the duke org looked forward and shadow phased through the city they were in. Soon he found five three pointers along with eight two pointers and ten one pointers, they seemed to be in a guarding formation ready to take anyone on in a circle, "they could make it less obvious," he commented, he stopped shadow phasing and ran at his normal speed.

The bots all saw him and the ten one pointers began to charge, the two in front began to open fire on him while the four behind got ready for him to charge by implanting their wheals in the ground and aiming at him, the last four dashed at top speeds for a close ranged onslaught of rubber bullets. Zen-Aku brought his dagger flute out as well while he charged them, the two that were firing upon him were easy to predict where they would be firing so he was able to make it to a street lamp and cut two spikes out of it with his crescent blade before spin kicking them at the two. Of course they couldn't do anything other than take the hit and explode, causing smoke to envelope them giving him enough time to throw his dagger and take out the first one that was rushing him, he sent the dagger back with his energy and spun just as the second one was upon him. He slashed diagonally from left to right and split it in half before bringing it back down diagonally as well while turning to his right just as the third was there ready to fire at him, and then with a quick stab being him to the left of his head the fourth one spasmed before falling apart. The last four fired at him then and he shadow phased past them until he was right on the middle two, summoning his dagger flute again and bringing his blades down vertically while flipping cut them in half, he landed with grace right before turning and throwing his dagger to his left. The dagger destroyed the one pointer ready to fire at his side while he brought out and stabbed the final one pointer through its heart that was aiming for him as well, it buzzed and spasmed before shutting down as well, Zen-Aku turned to look back at what remained of the guard.

The eight two pointers were a bit more wide spread, two were on the building's sides aiming their tails at him, two more on the opposite side doing the same, one was on the building roofs on each side while the last two were on the ground, all buying time while the big surprise was waiting. Zen-Aku began the charge by hopping up to one wall of the building and then hopping to the other before reaching the first of the two on the left side buildings, he sank his fingers deep into the concrete of the building and swung with only his arm strength to kick the two pointer in the air. He let go of the concrete in his grip and stabbed the bottom of his crescent blade in the head of the second two pointer before jumping as the first two pointer was falling between buildings, with a spin in mid air the bot was cut in half as it fell, the two on the other side were now his target. With a stab of the bottom of his crescent blade, the heart of the lead two pointer was pierced, he didn't take it out as he jumped, slicing through the metal of the first one until there was no more and he was on the second one, with a simple turn of the blade the second two pointer was dead. Dead from a pierced head that went through it before he flipped and jumped up to come face to face with the two pointer on the roof of the right side set of buildings, it tried to hit him with its tail but was grabbed instead and thrown over his shoulder to the opposite building. I landed directly on the two pointer on the left side building roofs, Zen-Aku jumped and with a flash of shadow he phased and split them open with a horizontal slash, he jumped back until he landed on the road in front of the last two bots between him and the three pointers, he charged. One tried to stab at him with its tail but was dodged before a knee hit its head and had the base of its neck chopped off, killing it, the last two pointer was then slammed into the ground with the severed head of the two pointer head that he held with his left hand, it died soon after the beatings began.

Now all that was left was five three pointers, they were supposed to be the strongest, so they all charged him in a straight line, Zen-Aku thought it was now time to let something loose, he swung out his crescent blade and the top and bottom part of the blade slid past the handle some. He began to swing it in an infinity symbol motion, letting the blade be coated in the pale yellow energy of the attack before letting the energy go in small bursts, but still large enough to do some large damage, "crescent wave," he called out and the waves of energy did what it did. That being sending wave after wave of pale yellow energy shot out in crescent shapes and sliced through the three pointers and into the machinery, destroying it over and over until they exploded one after the other, then there was nothing left of them except scrap metal there.

Keep in mind he did all of this in just another minute of the exam after spending thirty seconds getting here taking out some bots along the way, so by his estimate Zen-Aku should have close to sixty points in this exam, clearly above others that are getting close to his location as he can tell. He's hearing some get close to the center, so if the UA faculty watching the exam was smart, they'd deploy their secret right about now, so he shadow phased to one of the taller buildings to get a better look at what it was they would be facing off against in case a large strategy was needed.

His prediction was proven right when the sound of rumbling could be felt and heard as the center exploded and up came a large skyscraper level green beast, head as big as a building, arms and legs able to crush anything it touched, all on tank-like rollers that crushed all beneath it. "Well that is one way to liven up a test," Zen-Aku commented, he looked down and saw the other examinees running away from that thing, morons, this is part of the exam, overcome a challenge like this, not because there is no reward for it, but because that is what a hero does.

"Ow," he heard a girl scream out, he looked down and saw a girl with coconut brown hair in a track suit lying on the ground, her foot trapped beneath rubble, the zero pointer slowly moving its way towards her with each passing moment that the others were running for their lives in the exam.

With a growl he acted in a haze of movement, while all the others were running away, they saw the one wolf-like monster running to the large beast of a robot with nothing to gain and nothing to lose if he ran away, they stopped and stared at him running and a few noticed what he did. They saw a girl in the rubble about to be squashed, yet they didn't act, only stood there and watched as the wolf monster ran in and let his body glow brightly for a moment before he was to the robot monster's head, within a single moment he was before the monster ready to fight.

Zen-Aku used One For All to get to the robot's head faster than his shadow phasing would allow, but now that he was up here he brought back out his crescent blade and flipped and channeled both his power and One For All into his blade and with a mighty yell, vertically slashed downward. The result was the biggest crescent wave he'd ever produced that not only split the behemoth's head in two, but also the entirety of his body, in one smooth motion the entire thing was cut in half and he was saving a young girl from dying in this mock battle practical exam, he was a hero.

He was in mid air now and he began to fall fast, but he twisted his body gave the examinees a little show, he went from falling feet first to falling head first, he looked to the sky and spread his arms out and with the manipulation of his org energy glided a bit until he was safely to the ground. He slid back a few feet and then stood to his full height, looked around and saw everyone's shocked faces, then he turned his back to the destroyed villain robot and began walking slowly to the entrance, walked as if taking a stroll as the exam was called to a close.

* * *

Week later

Zen-Aku was at his house, well, Izuku's and his mom's house, but since he was posing as Izuku he thought he might as well call it his own, him and Inko were eating dinner, she cringed a bit as she watched him eat, still not used to that opening of his mask part, creepy to her but needed for him. After the comfortably silent dinner, he went to his room again and began working out a plan on how he was going to have his dark wolf armor sent in to be his hero costume, he could do many things, smuggle it in, send in his form with the exact designs he wants, but what of the material. His dark wolf armor isn't just for show, it's functional and fit him and only him perfectly, made of the strongest of all material, his own soul, it was a piece of him that can never be destroyed as long as he too lived, able to remove like any other armor, but was as existing as him.

A knock came at his door and Inko stepped in, panicked, "a letter, Izuku, they came, Izuku look, you got a letter, they're here, your test results from UA," she panicked her reply and fumbled a bit as she gave it to him and then left to give him some privacy while he read the results.

Zen-Aku set at his desk and opened the letter calmly, taking out a small device before setting it down flat on the surface and let the projection of whoever the person giving out the results would appear in, he just didn't expect the damn thing to be All Might of all people coming on the screen. "Booya, I am here as a projection now," he said in a yellow suit, " I know it's been a while but with great power comes a great amount of paperwork, my apologies young man," he bowed a bit, "the truth is I didn't come to this city just to fight villains, you're looking at the newest UA faculty member." Someone off screen to get his attention and after a quick discussion about how many he had to do, "you scored one hundred percent on the written test, first one to do that in a long time, and you got sixty combat points in the practical exam, and also scored several rescue points as well. Given to those who showed a helping hand to others, you scored an added sixty rescue points," well that was new, Zen-Aku thought that maybe since he'd gotten enough combat points he'd be given the minimal amount of rescue points, but he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "You have passed the exam," was it just him was some inspirational music playing in the background, they must have thought that there was a need to do that, All Might stuck out his hand, "welcome Izuku, you have made it, you're now a part of the hero academia," well Zen-Aku made it.

* * *

A/N: I'm thinking of having a Zen-Aku/Tsuyu pairing, but tell me what you think about that idea and feel free to tell me if you want something else instead.


	2. Tests and The First Battle

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 2

Tests and The First Battle

Zen-Aku was getting his black shoes with a dark grey trim and white lace on, it was the first day of school of UA, so he wore the standard attire, dark green pants, white shirt, grey blazer, and bright red tie, it contrasted a bit with his dark grey fur but he was sure that it was fine. He stood up and slung his yellow backpack over his shoulder and turned to his worried 'mother', "Izuku, you're all set," he nodded, "are you sure, you didn't just pack action figures, right" she asked again and he nodded, though also gave her a look that asked if she was serious.

"Don't worry, I've got everything, and I haven't packed action figures with me for a while now, I gotta go or I'll be late," he nodded to his 'mother' before walking out the door and made his way to his new high school, to be honest he's never actually been to one before, too big of a headache.

Once he got there he headed for what was to be his new classroom, class 1-A, and to be honest the door to said room was overly large, and unless there were naturally giant sized students here, it was an overly large thing and didn't need to be that big, made even more so based on the class size. It only had twenty people in it, two would be in through recommendation, eighteen would be through the usual entrance exams, and to be honest that wasn't really a fair or accurate judge on who would get in, the duke org was sure there were more qualified people that didn't get through.

"Take your feet off of that desk now, it's the first day and you're already disrespecting this academy by scuffing up school property your cretin," was the first thing he heard when he opened the door, it was from the impatient boy form the exam that looked stiff in everything he did.

"Eh, you gotta be kidding me, your old school put a stick up your ass or were you born with it," was of course the words from Bakugo as he was sitting like a delinquent and acted better than everyone else, of course those two were going to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.

The glasses wearing kid realized something from the expression his face gave off, he put his left hand to his chest and stuck his right out, "let's start over, I'm Tenya Iida from Somei private academy," he introduced himself properly, well that wasn't going to help anything at all.

"Stome huh, so you must think you're better than me, I'm going to have fun tearing you a new one," Bakugo proudly stated with a grin showing off his pearly white teeth, to be honest Zen-Aku had no idea what the UA administration was thinking allowing that boy to be put in the hero course.

Tenya's expression went from a proper one to one of disbelief at what the explosion causing boy was saying, "you would threaten me, your own classmate, are you sure you're in the right place," Bakugo just scoffed and turned to the side and spotted him, so did Tenya, "huh, it's him. "Zen-Aku didn't even acknowledge that he was noticed and only began to walk to his seat towards the back, that was where he was placed according to the documentation he was sent, therefore Tenya walked his way, "good morning, my name is Tenya Iida fro," that was as far as he got.

"It doesn't matter where you are from before today, as of today you are a UA student, you will be recognized as a UA student and nobody is going to care about the school you went to before here, Tenya Iida, I'm Izuku Midoriya" Zen-Aku stated and cut him off from the rest of his introduction.

Tenya stopped in front of him and stared at him for but a moment, "Midoriya, you realized that there was something more to that practical exam, didn't you, you must be very perceptive, and I had no idea about it, I admit that as a student you're far superior to me," he stated plainly.

"No, you just missed the point of the exam in total," the duke org plainly stated and the boy looked like a lost puppy, "this is a hero school, meaning they judge you on your merits in hero work, and truth be told I'm surprised they let anyone get in that got zero rescue points."

Tenya was stunned silent, but thankfully that was replaced by another voice by the door, "hey I recognize that scary wolf mask looking face, my savior," the voice was peppy and energetic, but Zen-Aku didn't register it, instead he stared at what was behind her, which caused her to turn.

It was a scruffy man with long black hair and looked to be very sleep deprived, he was also in a puffy yellow sleeping bag, in the floor, "welcome to UA's hero course," the bag unzipped a bit and out came a juice pouch that was quickly squeezed and emptied of its contents by the man. The man began getting out of the sleeping bag as he talked, "it took eight seconds before you all shut up, that's not gonna work, time is precious, rational students would understand that," by the time he stopped talking he had completely taken off the sleeping bag and held onto it. "Hello, I'm Shota Aizawa, your teacher," now the man out of the sleeping bag could be plainly seen wearing all black with a dark gray scarf around his neck was standing there, "alright, let's get to it," he reached in a yellow sleeping bag as he said that. "Put these on and head outside," he pulled out a blue, white, and red outfit, blue as the main color with a white A on the front with the legs of the A going down the legs and looked to go up the back and form a U around the neck, sides of arms red and blue.

When everyone got outside they were told it was a quirk assessment test, "but orientation, we're going to miss it," the girl that Zen-Aku saved in the entrance exams commented in worry since she didn't want to get the whole class in trouble because their teacher was a bit strange.

"If you really want to make the big leagues, you can't waist time on pintless ceremonies, here at UA we're not tethered to traditions, that means I get to run my class however I see fit," Aizawa stated with his back to them, but turned to them on the last part of his statement. "You've been taking standardized tests most of your lives, but you never got to use your quirks on physical exams before," he held up a phone with various tests on it, "the country's trying to pretend we're all still created equal by not letting those with the most power accel, it's not rational. One day the ministry of education will learn, Midoriya, you managed to get the most points on the entrance exam, what was your farthest distance throwing a soft ball when you were in junior high," the teacher asked after giving a short speech, a short yet rational speech.

Bakugo growled at him for that, he obviously didn't miss the comment about the lack of rescue points part, "forty something if I remember correctly," Zen-Aku stated and ignored the glare he was getting from Bakugo, if looks could kill he'd be dead ten times over from the boy.

"Right, try doing it with your quirk," Aizawa told him and gave a ball to the duke org as he got in the middle of a circle on the ground, "anything goes just stay in the circle, go on, you're wasting our time," clearly the teacher had very little patience and didn't like to be kept waiting.

"Very well," he pulled out his crescent blade and the teacher raised an eyebrow at him, he brought his blade in launch mode and put the ball on the end, after putting energy into the blade he swung it and out shot the ball in front of a crescent shaped pale yellow light that sored on.

"All of you need to know your maximum capabilities, it's the most rational way of figuring out your potential as a pro hero," Aizawa held up the phone to show 1.06 Kilometers, the others gasped in shock and said how fun they thought it might be to try testing their quirks. "So this looks fun huh," he gained quite the eerie look about him when he said that, "you have three years here to become a hero, you think it's all going to be games and play time, idiots" he gained a smile when he said that. "Today you'll compete in eight physical tests to gauge your potential, whoever come in last has none and will be expelled immediately," he stated looking quite pleased with himself seeing the student's shocked looks, "like I said, I get to decide how this class runs, understand? If that's a problem you can head home right now," now he has a small grin that must have sent shivers up the spines of everyone else, the crazy eyes he had didn't really help things either, though since he already went with the ball through he was exempt from doing it again.

"You can't send one of us home, I mean we just got here, even if it is the first day, it isn't fair," the same girl that was concerned about the orientation spoke up, what a mistake, life isn't fair so why should a school meant to prepare you for hero work be fair at all.

"Oh, and you think natural disasters are, or power-hungry villains, or catastrophic accidents that will wipe out whole cities, no, the world is full of unfairness, it's a heroes job to try and combat that unfairness, if you want to be a pro you're going to have to push yourself to the brink. For the next three years, UA will throw one terrible hardship after another at you, so go beyond, plus ultra style, show me it's no mistake that you're here," Aizawa had on a little smirk as he said that last part, "now then, we're just wasting time by talking, let the games begin."

First up with the fifty-meter dash, the first pair was Tenya going against a frog girl, Tenya got one point zero four seconds, frog girl got five point five eight seconds, and after that pair was the girl he saved and a guy with a tail, tail guy four point four nine and girl got seven point one five. Next was a pink skinned girl against a boy that sparkled, literally, guy got five point five one, he didn't pay attention to the girl, next was Bakugo and Zen-Aku, Bakugo used explosions to go faster, got one point one three, the duke org just phase shifted and got point zero six seconds.

After the fifty-meter dash was the grip strength, the duke org used One For All this time and broke the machine he gripped it so hard, a special one was brought in and he got five thousand even, other like a guy with multiple tentacle arms got five hundred forty kilograms. After that was the standing long jump, others used their quirks to go farther than those that didn't use their quirks, Zen-Aku used his own power now and jumped and got quite far, went as far as getting double what everyone else got when they did it, impressing everyone there. The fourth test was the repeated side step, to get through this one he had to put both shadow phasing and One For All in one to continue to get first place in it, it worked because by the time he was done the machine was barely able to register what he did and began twitching.

The fifth was the ball throw that was shown earlier, coconut hair used her quirk to manipulate the gravity of the ball to throw it and make it keep going and going and going and going until the whole thing just gave the sensor the number infinity, which was just the use of her quirk. Everyone else was shocked, but they really shouldn't be seeing as her quirk just made the ball go far beyond what it would normally go, and if you think about it, it wasn't really that impressive, it was honestly just the use of her quirk that did it, so logically that would be the outcome.

Bakugo was up next and he growled as he passed Zen-Aku, he'd been getting beaten on every single event here and it was starting to piss the boy off even more, so he stepped up to the place with his anger and sweat at its peak and through the ball with a shout of, "DIE!" The results were quite impressive, the resounding explosion that came from the throw was actually larger than what he had previously made in the past and sent the ball quite far, and yet when they checked the measured scanner it read seven hundred and five point two meters. Everyone else was impressed and could easily tell that he made it to the top three, but Bakugo had just a short a fuse as ever as he began to demand a redo of the throw, it was given but it got the same result, so he began charging while screaming, "hey, Deku you bastard. Tell me how you got so strong or you're dead," about to blow the duke org to smithereens, that was before he was wrapped up in Aizawa's bandages like Midoriya earlier, "what the hell, why the hell is your damn scarf so strong," he grunted out as he tried to turn his head to his captor.

"Because it's a capture weapon made from carbon fiber and a special medal alloy, stand down, it would be wise to avoid making me use my quirk so much, it gives me serious dry eye," Aizawa stated his quirk activated to hold back any explosion that Bakugo might try on his scarf. He unwrapped Bakugo and deactivated his quirk once Bakugo calmed down a little, "you're wasting my time now, whoever's next can step up," he stated before going back to judging the trials, though the rest seemed to be lackluster as compared to the rest of them.

After the throw was the sit up, which he excelled at as well, got more than any other, seated toe touch was easy as well, mainly because he was flexible as a warrior, and the long-distance run was easy as well since he was faster than everyone else once you counted in his shadow phasing. At the end of it all, the results were calculated effectively, "alright, time to give you your results, I've ranked you all from best to worst, you should probably have a pretty good idea of your standing already, I'll pull up the whole list, not worth going over each individual score," Aizawa stated. First place was Izuku Midoriya, followed by Momo Yaoyorozu, Shoto Todoroki, Bakugo, Tenya, Fumikage Tokoyami, Mezo Shoji, Mashirao Ojiro, Eijiro Kirishima, Mina Ashido, Ochaco Uraraka, Koji Koda, Rikido Sato Tsuyu Asui, Yuga Aoyama, Hanta Sero, Denki Kaminari, Kyoka Jiro, Toru Hagakure, and Minoru Mineta. "And I was lying, no one's going home," Aizawa stated bluntly to everyone, "that was just a rational deception to make sure you gave it your all on the test," he lied with a big grin that did not look well considering his appearance, some of the others were shocked by this, others had a different thought.

"I'm surprised the rest of you didn't figure that out, I'm sorry, I guess I really should have said something," a girl with a pony tail in a spiky back end going in each direction commented her thoughts, it was the wrong thought, but it was something better than believing him at all.

"That's it, we're done for the day, pick up a syllabus in the classroom and read it over before tomorrow morning," Aizawa stated as he began to walk away, the other students want to talk with everyone else, congratulating them and such, but Zen-Aku just walked away and home.

* * *

The next day

Zen-Aku was ready for this the agonizingly long day he was about to have before leaving the apartment, and the school day went slow at first, morning was regular school classes, English and math and science, then lunch came and went quickly enough, and finally was the hero training. Now it was time for him to deal with Bakugo, he was a big believer in fate, so he was sure that something was going to come up that would have him going against him in some form or another, but now that he was Zen-Aku and not 'Deku', he was wasn't going to pull any punches.

"I AM HERE," a voice called out as it reached the doorway, "COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A HERO," a big bulky man in a red jumpsuit, yellow gloves, red on the inside blue on the outside cape wearing man with blonde hair that had a two big bunny ear-like strands sticking up in the front. The rest of the class was in awe at All Might, and didn't sound the least bit concerned that the hero just announced his entry in the dumbest way possible, and the man just marched up to the podium as if it was nothing, "welcome to the most important class at UA high. Think of it as Heroing 101, here you will learn the basics of being a pro, and what it means to fight in the name of good, let's get into it, todays training will pull no punches," the hero exclaimed before pulling out a card that had the word BATTLE written on it in an overly dramatic fashion. "But one of the keys to being a hero is looking good," again overly dramatic and exuberantly said, this time panels on the wall opened up with cases in them ranging from one to twenty, "these were made for you based on your quirk registration forms and the requests you sent in before school started. Get yourselves suited up and then meet me in training ground beta," All Might ordered before receiving a resounding 'yes sir' from everyone in class, Zen-Aku would smirk if he could, now was the time for him to get back to his armor, the armor he asked if could be sent in and was allowed.

Zen-Aku walked out of the hallway after everyone else with a purpose in each step his feet was covered in black boots that could be mistaken for wolf paws, black leather pants was covered by black shin and knee guards, that was covered by an open in the front skirt reaching lower shin. His belt was leather with a silver pentagon pointed down with a yellow circle in the middle, his upper body was covered in a black shirt, arms had black gauntlets, shoulder pads, a breastplate that had a part of it detached from the rest and let show a type of abs design that moved with him.

He silently walked out and saw the others out as well, they had various designs made for amplifying their quirks or were just there for style, his was just in his attire for every day wandering, he was walking as All Might began talking, walking calmly out of the tunnel to them. "They say that clothes make the pros ladies and gentlemen, and you are the proof, take this to heart, from now on you are all heroes in training, getting me all ramped up, you are all so cool, and now it's time to get started you bunch of newbies." Zen-Aku walked and stood between Iida and the boy that sparkled, he could tell it was Iida because the boy had robot moves going on every now and again, over the short time he's known the glasses wearing boy he soon learned that he was so uptight that he did this often, it was strange. They all only had to wait for a few minutes before All Might was ready to continue with explanation of the combat training, "now that you're ready, it's time for combat training," he announced to them all, this was what they've been waiting for after all, time to show what they can all do.

"Sir," Tenya asked in white armor while he raised his hand, again he didn't let the teacher finish explaining, if he stopped interrupting then they'd find out during it, "this is the fake city from our entrance exam, does that mean we'll be conducting urban battles again," the boy asked.

"Not quite, I'm going to move you two steps ahead, most villain fights you see on the news takes place outside, however statistically speaking, run ins with the most dastardly evildoer takes place indoors, such as backroom deals, home invasions, secret underground layers. Truly intelligent criminals stay hidden in the shadows, but for this training exercise, you'll be split into two teams of good guys and bad guys and fight two on two indoor battles," All Might answered, and honestly it was intelligently spoken, somewhat at least. As a former villain himself that was at one point forced to work with other villains back before quirks, most of the battles fought against the rangers were done in daylight, if any were done in a building it was still a large and boisterous affair after everything was said and done.

"Isn't this a bit too advanced," the frog girl asked him, though it wasn't really a good thought out question, but one that young students may need to know, at least her question was a valid one and not about the rules that would have been explained, so she was sensible at least.

"The best training is what you get on the battlefield, but remember, you can't just punch a robot this time, you're dealing with actual people now," All Might advised before he was interrupted and asked various stupid questions that would be explained if given the right time to talk and explain. He then pulled out a script, "listen up, the situation is this, the villains have hidden a nuclear missile somewhere in their hideout, the heroes must try and foil their plans, to do that, the good guys either have to catch the evildoers or recover the weapon. Likewise, the bad guys succeed if they protect their payload or capture the heroes," the hero explained simply enough, then pulled a box of lots out of nowhere, "time's limited, we'll choose teams by drawing lots," which accurately simulated the randomness of parings in the real world.

Team A: Ochaco Uraraka and Katsuki Bakugo, B: Mezo Shoji and Shoto Todoroki, C: Minoru Mineta and Momo Yaoyorozu, D: Izuku Midoriya and Tenya Iida, E: Mina Ashido and Yuga Aoyama, F: Koji Koda and Rikido Sato, G: Denki Kaminari and Kyoka Jiro, H: Fumikage Tokoyami and Tsuyu Asui. I: Mashirao Ojiro and Toru Hagakure, J: Hanta Sero and Eijiro Kirishima, those were all the teams, and to be honest he was fine with his partner, though as long as he was picked to be a hero he was fine with whatever the outcome, Tenya was decent to work with, a bit too wound up.

"I declare the first teams to fight will be," All Might announced as he began fishing around for more lost in one container marked villain and the other marked hero, "these guys," he announced again holding up the D and A in an over glorified fashion, it seemed two rivals meet. "Team A will be the heroes, team D will be the villains, everyone else can head to the monitoring room to watch," everyone walked away, leaving team A and team D plus All Might, "bad guys, you can go on in and get set up, in five minutes the good guys will be let loose and we will start." As they began to file in when All Might stopped them, "young Iida, young Midoriya, the key to being successful in this challenge is to embody villainy, think from the perspective of an evildoer, if things go too far I'll step in," he told them as they finished going into the building.

Soon they were on the floor containing the bomb, it was the top floor of the five floor building, however with their enemy being Bakugo then nowhere was safe with him being the hero, "even though this is training, it pains me to be aligned with criminal behavior," Iida stated.

"Treat this as the real thing, training or not, if you don't take it seriously then there is no point," Zen-Aku told him as he went to inspect the bomb along with Iida, they were paired with each other, so now he was going to get a crash course in villainy one oh one here and now. "First priority is to protect the payload until time runs out, are you good with engineering," he asked and got a blank nod, "then you will remain here incase you're needed, when the heroes come I will handle the threat against setting the bomb off in our faces, explosion boy."

Iida was looking at him as if he had groan two heads, which wasn't that far off considering, "how are you able to think like that, so quickly and adequately without even thinking with some time," that was quite the question but to be honest he was old enough to give the response needed.

"This situation can come about in any form, we could be heroes protecting the missile form a villain attack, just turn what you know and when you speak use the words associated with villainy, such as while I go kill them for trying to take it from us, you guard and kill whoever comes."

It was getting close to them starting now though, so they should get ready for what is about to happen, soon though they would have to take on Bakugo and Ochaco Uraraka, "ALRIGHT, LET'S BEGIN THE INDOOR COMBAT TRAINING, TEAM A AND TEAM D, YOUR TIME STARTS NOW!"

"So it begins," Zen-Aku said to himself before turning to Iida, "I'm going to go kill the heroes, if anyone else comes through that door other than me kick their heads off, got it," he growled out with narrowed eyes and the boy squeaked out a 'yes' before putting on his helmet.

He began walking out of the room and through the building on to the lower levels, he could already hear the explosions, and Uraraka calling out, "wait, we should take them on together, we'll go faster that way and win this training exercise," then receiving a loud 'shut up' in return.

He sighed, but as long as they were focused on things other than the bomb, then that means they weren't going to win, so he brought out his dagger flute and began to play, this was always a good fear tactic, and while it wouldn't make them fear him, it will distract them some more. The more they are distracted the more they will have a divided mind, the more divided the mind of the team the less efficient they work with each other and the less likely they are to succeed, meaning they have the advantage as long as Bakugo is amongst the team.

"What is that music, where is it coming from," Uraraka asked in slight fear at the resounding sound of the music, one good thing about tight spaces is that it allows sound to bounce off the walls and eventually by the time it reached them it was an echo with no way to pinpoint it.

"Fuck, come out and fight me Deku," Bakugo shouted as he listened to everywhere he could for what might be the source of the music, sadly though, he couldn't find it and that just made him madder, "get the hell out here you bastard, fight me," he demanded until it looked to end.

When it ended they had wasted a good three minutes waiting for him to show up, time limit was fifteen minutes, but it was enough to help them with the stalling, Bakugo got mad enough to charge through the halls though, so he rounded a corner to try and run up the stairs. Too bad for him he got a fist to the gut for his troubles, this was because of a blind spot he had, thanks to his bulky gauntlets he was ill-prepared for when Zen-Aku used that to get in close and delivered a punch to his gut, which he then used to slam his elbow into his jaw while turning to his right. He brought up his forearms to block the blind swing that Bakugo made at him with his left before ducking under the explosions from the right hand, he turned and slammed his left fist into the gut of the boy using One For All, causing him to cough up some spit in his mouth.

Uraraka came around the corner to get to her partner but stopped when she saw nobody there anymore, the duke org used shadow phasing to get past her using the ceiling while she was distracted with concern for her partner, so she couldn't do anything when he came up behind her. For the attack on her he grabbed her hands and twisted them until her arms were behind her back like they were chicken wings, her hands not touching him and slammed her into the wall away from the corner, face first into the wall and she grunted in pain at the rough treatment. He kicked her knee in and she fell to the floor on her knees with him still holding her hands behind her back, behind them Bakugo continued to slowly rise from the previous beating that he'd been dealt, "what will you do hero, attack me and thus risking her, or run to find the bomb."

"Then leave her to be captured instead, you're a real villainous thinker aren't you Deku," Bakugo said while wiping the spit from his mouth, he never knew that the boy could hit him so hard, "but that also means you can't stop me from winning this challenge while you're occupied."

"Really Explosion," Zen-Aku asked sounding rougher than meant, but the boy looked confused, he stopped acting, "with a little pause in the training exorcise, I've decided to test out a codename, wouldn't do for heroes and villains to call each other by their real names, call me Zen-Aku." Now the boy showed some understanding, "but back to what I was about to say," he went back to that voice, "really Explosion, leaving a poor defenseless captured hero alone while you go get all the glory, one that is a girl, with a nice skintight outfit on, so I guess it would be a form of capture." To be honest he hated how he was acting, like one of those baser instinct orgs that had more instinct then mind, and he knew that Bakugo knew he hated it, and by the tense of the girl she was getting uncomfortable, but this was a training exorcise and this could happen in real life.

"So what, just run out the clock doing nothing, I can't attack or risk hurting her, can't run because she'll get raped while I get made out to look like a bad guy for ditching my partner, can't wait because then the bomb will either go off or the transport for it will arrive," Bakugo asked him.

"That does seem to be the only options open don't they," Zen-Aku commented, though he was obviously dropping hints that it was only seeming that way, there were many other options though, and he could see 'Explosion' going through them the best he could in his mind.

That is when one of those options acted, that being Uraraka concentrating to not only use her quirk on her hands, but her wrists as well where he was touching and squeezing, meaning he began to float up, taking his eyes off of Bakugo for only an instant but long enough. He moved and was able to blow the duke org back a bit of a distance away while Uraraka got the feeling back in her arms from the rough hold and grip, she knew this was just an act, a true embodiment of villainy, but that didn't mean it didn't creep her out as well. "Round face," Bakugo grabbed her attention, "good job figuring that out, now go, I'll hold him off while you go find the bomb," she nodded and ran off without waiting for another word, "that was a really shitty move there Deku, playing a villain of that type should be beneath you."

Zen-Aku just stood there after recovering from the weak explosion, "this is an exorcise Explosion, so of course I'm going to make it as realistic as possible, you never know what villain acts on their basic desires, like animals really, that is one dilemma that faces heroines, harsh but true."

Bakugo scowled at the logic he was using before charging at him, this time not making the same mistake that he made before, keeping his gauntlets out of his line of sight until he went in for a good explosion, but it was grabbed and he was flipped before he could do anything else. He was slammed into the floor hard enough to bounce back up a bit, but the bastard took that opportunity to bring up his heel and slam it into his head and cracked the floor a bit with the power from it, then he jumped and grabbed Bakugo's feet and pulled him up. Using that as leverage he slammed the boy into the ceiling, but the boy got out and used an explosion to get some distance for a moment to think up a strategy, only to be greeted with a kick to the gut strong enough to hunch him over, which was then used in an interesting way. Zen-Aku vaulted over him, rolling his back with the boy's own and then when he was on the other side, side kicked him back a bit to where he landed on his back again and rolled until he righted himself with practiced ease, this time panting in place from the heavy hits he took.

"Have to say Deku, since you've gotten that quirk you've been more confident, you might actually put up a challenge to me," Bakugo goaded while wiping his chin, 'what is it about him that made him hit so hard, or become so fast, there's no real pattern, not that I could see it anyways.'

"I'd hurry Explosion, there's only eight minutes left until the bomb is set off, killing the city and the citizens," Zen-Aku taunted, he hated to taunt, but knew that the best way to win with the best results was to run out the clock in the best way possible, meaning him angry and dodge him.

"Midoriya, are you there," Iida voiced through the earpiece that All Might had handed them in passing to talk to each other, "Uraraka is here, but she has nothing to work with since I removed everything from the room, how is your distracting Bakugo coming along," his own partner asked.

"Good actually," the duke org said as he dodged a right then left explosion from Bakugo before ducking a kick in midair and sending a left palm strike to the boy's gut and a right One For All jab to the boy's nose, "either capture her or keep her moving around, time should run out soon."

Bakugo went back to work and charged for the duke org, using explosions to propel him and then used that to kick him in the chest, but Zen-Aku let him, because that brought him into the grasp of said duke org who used that to pull him in to the right while grabbing his throat with the left. Then used that as a grip to repeatedly slam the boy into the wall repeatedly until the explosion maker had enough and made an explosion in his face and caused the villain to drop him, and then use an explosion to speed up his backhand to him to force him to back away from him and give an opening. Yet the right hand that came up and delivered the backhand did nothing since Zen-Aku just snapped his head back to look at him before striking at Bakugo's gut with his own right fist, then a hold that let him repeatedly give knee strikes to the boy, before he was tossed into the opposing wall.

Bakugo struggled to get up now, faintly realizing the glow within his gauntlets, "don't think you can look down on me Deku," he growled out as he rose with effort, "it's clear that you've trained, but you've only trained your body, you're not using your quirk at all, am I not good enough?" Zen-Aku refused to give an answer on that, chose instead to walk away from him and stand against a wall while staring at him, this should be fun, "doesn't matter if you answer me or not, but no doubt you've noticed the beeping of my gauntlets, that means that it's ready to pop." He said with a maniacal grin as he raised said gauntlets, and pointed the tip towards him, that is when he saw it, a hole for projecting a large blast in a pressurized large blast, he pulled the pin back and out popped a smaller pin that would allow him to pull for a big blast. "That's right, these gauntlets aren't just for show, they've been storing up my sweat inside for one monster blast," he put his shaky hand on the pin and was ready to pull it out, "I know that you'll be fine as long as you dodge or use your quirk at its fullest," he pulled the pin.

Out came a large monster blast that destroyed the surrounding walls and tore up the surrounding floor, the intense heat was almost staggering, and one direct hit would actually mean his victory at the moment, but it has one large weakness, it was fire, and therefore it could be cut. Yes, cut, bringing out his crescent blade for the first time in this fight he made a vertical slash with all his concentration in mind and with his blade cut the large explosion in two, making it destroy the wall behind him in two separate places, but the destruction was still just as devastating. Rubble was everywhere and the floor was now unstable from the blast, walls were brittle to the point that just one good punch would bring it down, everything was smoking and at the start of the hole was Bakugo panting and walking with purpose to where Zen-Aku was at.

When he got there he was stunned to find that the duke org was not hurt from the explosion, "how they fuck did you do that, you split my attack up and actually walked away unscathed," he was stunned until he saw the blade in the duke org's hands, which was glowing with heat.

"Hand-to-hand was never my best skill," Zen-Aku stated to the boy who just gaped at him, "I know, surprising seeing as how I was still able to beat you, but my quirk has me more as a sword fighter than a hand based fighter," he brought his sword out and set it to firing mode like before. "Let me show you what I mean," he swung the blade at the boy and a pale yellow energy came out of it and slammed into him, forcing him back until he was slammed into the wall opposite to the path of destruction he caused, the duke org was upon him faster than before with his blade. He struck at the explosion boy's gut and sparks flew from the impact point, confusing those in the monitor room for sure, but the boy was in pain as if he was struck there for real, he brought the blade up again and struck him again with a diagonal strike going up this time, more pain to him. Then that increased further when the duke org slammed his blade onto Bakugo's right shoulder, "I can actually make my blade into an actual blade for combat or a blunt blade for training if you were wondering, but the pain is real," he slammed the blade down and the sparks that flew were large.

Bakugo fell down to the floor on his stomach from the pain he felt, it was like he was gutted, then his chest was actually cut open before an injury that he wasn't even sure All Might could have walked away from was given to him, his muscles all screamed at him to stop, to rest and heal. He can't though, he just couldn't stop and willingly lose to Deku, to someone that was up to this point useless, there should be no way he's good enough to stop him, there can be no way, he tried his best to stand up form the pain, fighting back the pain with growls and grunts.

Zen-Aku turned around and walked back to the destroyed section of the building before putting his left hand to his ears on his head, "Speed Demon, how are things going with Miss Infinity," he asked Iida since his fight with Bakugo was just about done with and time was almost up.

"Good actually, I've hidden everything that she could use with her quirk and I keep moving the bomb away from her when she tries to get too close," there was a pause in his explanation as he thought on what he said, "and really, 'Speed Demon', you couldn't have given a better name."

Before he could answer he heard the yell of Bakugo running for him with explosions to propel himself forward, Zen-Aku turned to see him and brought out his crescent blade, Bakugo sent an explosion with his left hand and made an explosion in his face to try and hide movement in smoke. Too bad the explosion and therefore shock of the explosion that was to be the center point for the smokescreen was blocked with his crescent blade, so when Bakugo thought he went overhead to get behind him to make another explosion he was surprised when the duke org acted. It was easy to predict what he would do and therefore easy to turn on a dime and slash to the right in a circle to strike at the collarbone and the left biceps of his arm with quick blade movements and caused the boy to grunt in pain, but not before making to strike with a right hook. It was blocked by the flat of the blade to strike the gauntlet part of the hit, Bakugo tried to create a chain of explosions to get behind him faster than normal but was again countered when the duke org went the opposing way and met him with a leg strike while also turning to get behind him.

It was there that he struck at the blonde's back with a diagonal strike and like before a large burst of sparks were brought forth from his back and he fell to the ground on his knees, panting like before, only this time his muscles didn't let him continue, they were shot from all kinds of pain. When he tried to move his leg at all he was met with another round of pain from the stress his body has gone under, the same thing happened when he tried to move his arms, hell he couldn't even move his head without getting a headache that caused him to want to pass out, the fuck.

"Now," Zen-Aku began to say as he walked to stand in front of his line of sight, "if you ever call me a weak Deku again, if you ever think for one moment that you're better than me again, the next training we are put against each other is the moment that you get much worse, got it?" He asked and to add to the intimidating sight, somehow the glow in the room and the position of the sun was in such a way that it made his amber eyes seem to glow thanks to the refracting light, the boy could only barely grunt out in the positive before he passed out right then.

"Time is up, the villain team wins," All Might announced to them all through the speakers, they had been watching everything through the monitors and now it was time to tell them all what was done wrong and what was done right, and truth be told, he wanted to know that as well. Zen-Aku was out of practice for villain work after all, it would be nice to see what all he needed to work on if he wanted to change careers and be a villain after everything was done with, or he may want to be a hero and get a license to be able to use his 'quirk' whenever he wants to. Whenever he got there he noticed that Bakugo was not going to be coming, "well, the MVP of this exercise is young Iida and young Midoriya," the rest of the students agreed with the statement, "hm, why don't we have a surprise quiz, who can tell why the villain team were the MVPs."

"Sir, I can tell you why," Momo, the girl with the spiky ponytail, raised her hand, "Iida and Midoriya embraced this challenge, he was the only one who truly adapted to his assigned role, Bakugo's judgement was clouded by a personal grudge, which could be seen in the large explosion indoors. Iida was fully prepared for his opponent's arrival and had a strategy while never losing sight of his mission to protect the dummy weapon, even if he was foiled in the end, and Iida even went out of his way as to show that not every villain prioritizes protecting their target and has other interests."

"Yes, well, you overlooked a few things, Iida could have relaxed a little bit in the exercise, and Midoriya showed a bit too much realism with that skit, but… otherwise you nailed it," All Might sounded a bit unnerved at her analysis, and though Izuku would have loved it, Zen-Aku didn't.

"One should always start with the basics and devote themselves full heartedly to learning, that's the only real way to become a top hero," the girl said again as a way of explaining herself, and now that he remembered, she was one of the two in his class that got in through recommendation.

"Now then, time to blow this joint, let's move on to the next match, think about everything we saw and discussed as you tackle this training for yourself," All Might stated before pulling two more balls from the stands, "match two, team B will be heroes and team I will be the villains, begin." Mezo Shoji used his tentacle arms to spot where they were, then relayed the information to his partner, Shoto Todoroki, who then decided to freeze the entire building and freeze the 'villains' to the floor, "he incapacitated them without compromising the weapon or his teammate, nice."

'Shoto Todoroki, the only other one of this class that had gotten in on recommendations, it seems his quirk his half-cold, half-hot, not many ways to fight against that evenly, either overwhelm him or tire him out, sounds about right,' Zen-Aku thought to himself at the most challenging one. 'Yet, I noticed that he didn't use his left side, could just be he took the simulation seriously enough to realize that it would be wrong, but then why did his left side hero costume have such a design such thing as ice covering it, the only reason would be he doesn't use it, but why?'

Next was the match between the villains played by team J, Eijiro and Sero, and the heroes played by team H, Tokoyami and Asui, that was quite the interesting matchup, Eijiro appeared to have a hardening type of quirk and Sero could shoot tape from his elbows, capture and frontal assault. The other side had Tokoyami with shadow based powers able to come out of himself giving him great advantage while Asui had the powers of a frog, and to be honest it was hard not to find a weak point in that team, they could win a lot better than the J team could, and they did.

Fourth match was having team C act as the villains, Momo Yaoyorozu and Minoru Mineta, Momo had a creation type of quirk that allowed her to make anything she knew the atomic makeup of, while Mineta's balls were sticky to everyone else but he bounces off them, interesting. Their opponents, the hero team G consisting of Denki Kaminari and Kyoka Jiro was at a disadvantage, Denki had his electrical power but that didn't matter since Momo blocked their path, Jiro could have helped, but it doesn't matter if her amplifier was weaker than the metal, it was.

Fifth match was a much more difficult matchup to guess, the villains were played by Koda and Sato, Koda seemed to be able to talk to animals and Sato got stronger the more sugar he ate, yet Koda was too shy to talk to anyone and Sato loses brain power after his quirk wears off. The hero team wasn't much better, it was team E consisting of Mina Ashido and Yuga Aoyama, Mina had an acid-like substance that she can secrete and Yuga had a naval laser that he can fire, though Mina isn't producing much acid and Yuga gets stomach trouble if he uses it too much.

When everything was done and over with everyone, other than Bakugo because he was still injured form his fight, was back to witness the end, he were in the crowd in front of All Might who blew a whistle and yelled, "THAT'S A WRAP, super work, you really stepped up to the plate. We also didn't have any major injuries other than Bakugo, you should be proud, excellent first day of training all around," he gave a few words of encouragement and sneaking Zen-Aku a glance.

"It's nice to hear some encouraging words after our homeroom class, Mr. Aizawa was kind of a buzz kill," Asui commented while raising her hand a bit, and even Zen-Aku had to admit that the lie to expel everyone was achieving the opposite, they were too worried about losing and not winning.

"I'M HAPPY TO BRING SUCH STAGERING POSITIVITY TO MY ALMA MATER, that's all for now folks, I should go check on young Bakugo's progress, now watch how a pro exits like he's got somewhere to be," All Might exclaimed before traveling at shockwave speeds away from the class. Zen-Aku stood tall and proud against it while they all shook and staggered against it, they headed to the changing rooms and changed out of their costumes, all of them silent to him in fear of him, he was so intimidating that he could not do anything right now and still instill fear, scary.

It was clear though that All Might wanted to talk to him though so after he got dressed and they had their day classes, he met the pro hero in a staff room lounge, he was in his true form and had his arms crossed as he stared at the boy with narrowed eyes, "why are you staring at me like that?"

The pro gestured to the seat opposite of him and the duke org complied to the request, or was it a command at the moment, either way he complied and acted as if nothing was wrong, because it wasn't to him, "do you have any idea how much damage you did to young Bakugo today?"

Oh, "to be fair it was training, I did warn him that I'm more of a sword fighter than a hand-to-hand combat type, and I also made sure not to cause permanent harm to him," Zen-Aku paused in his own defense, "I also brought down his ego a bit, all in all I don't think it was a bad deal."

"No it was not a bad deal, but Recovery Girl has asked me to tell you never to do that to him again, that training form of your blade was too much on his nervous system, unless there is special padding or the quirk is a hardening type like Kirishima's, that was too dangerous. I don't know how you did it, but those sparks dispelled some energy from the blade and the boy himself, every time you used them you took more from him then you, but that energy was simultaneously used to cut into the boy's own nervous system, his pain receptors mostly but still. If we continue to let him be cut with it then there would be no guarantee that his hero career would survive," All Might explained with a grim look about him, but to be honest it wasn't as bad as what he said, but the damage would hamper him greatly if it did continue completely.

"I apologize, you know I'm still figuring out all that my quirk can do, that is only a new development," that was a bold faced lie, but All Might didn't know that, he's used to attacking people with stronger bodies who's natural aura could dispel their energy naturally, using the real blade.

"It's fine, but just make sure you don't do that training blade trick on the other students as well, to be honest Bakugo could have suffered more if he was someone else and less resilient, but if you are sorry then that is the best we can do," All Might said pleasantly as he stood from his seat.

Zen-Aku did as well and bowed to him before leaving, "again I'm sorry, I'll practice with it some more until I can get a handle on it, along with continue to train with One For All," he opened the door to leave, his footsteps being that turned softer and quieter with each step taken by him.


	3. USJ

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 3

USJ

The very first thing that Zen-Aku saw when he went to school on one day was a large gathering of reporters in front of the school, most likely to get a scoop on the newly announced headache for himself, "are you one of All Might's students, tell us—what's the symbol of peace like in person?"

That question was asked to Uraraka who looked confused for a moment, "um… what's he like, well…uh—he's super muscle-y, yeah," she said with a bright cheer, and a flex of her arms for emphasis, but this was not the source of his headache at the moment, the true problem he had.

"How is he faring as a teacher; what are you learning," the same reporter asked another student, this time it was Iida who was asked, Zen-Aku just shook his head as he watched from down the wall out of the view of the reporters, this is going to make this hero thing a lot harder now.

"His leadership and wisdom remind me on a daily basis that I attend the world's most prestigious educational institution, of course he's the personification of honor and integrity that one would expect, be he's also not afraid to show his students a more humorous side," Iida began. "It's truly an honor to be under the direct tutelage of the pro we all admire," he began to talk more and the duke org had to tune him out from there, this All Might being a teacher at UA is going to get more students killed then helped, but the administration isn't thinking on that at all.

"Excuse me, kid, are you in All Might's class, oh hold on, aren't you that sludge villain kid," the reporter asked a scowling Bakugo, who scowled extra at the question before ordering her quietly to back away, the duke org thought he might as well go in, "can you tell me about All Might?"

Zen-Aku stopped and looked to her with a glance over his shoulder, and then he turned and stared at the reporting woman for a moment before speaking, "vultures like you who only want a story is scum, between rapists and the white substance that the corner of your mouth gets when you're thirsty." With that said he began walking into the school and left the shocked wide eyed stares of the press at what he just, he saw Aizawa walking to send the press away as he walked in, he obviously didn't hear anything since he was too far back and Zen-Aku didn't voice it very loudly to begin with.

Zen-Aku just walked to class and set in his seat behind Bakugo who scowled even more when he saw him before looking away as if he wasn't worth the time, Aizawa came then, "descent work on yesterday's combat training you guys," were Aizawa's first words to the class with a stack of papers. "I saw the video feeds and went over each of your team's results, Bakugo, you're talented, so don't sulk like a child about your loss, and Midoriya had the right idea about villain types, but for now let's get down to business, our first task will decide your future… pick a class representative."

That is when the duke org tuned out the conversation and decided to think to himself for a bit, last night in his room he thought about how different this world was, finally able to sit and rest and slow down to think on some things, some things that have made the people grow weak now. Everyone was weak, people may have grown powers here but they lack any true strength of self, their emotions are all over the place and their hope is all placed in one man, so if that one man shows any type of fault then the society of today would start to crumble inwards and break away. Most likely it will start with when villains attack All Might and target students to weaken him, he's never been a teacher before, never had a vulnerability, but now that he has the villains know exactly where to strike, which is why it was a mistake for them to hire him as a teacher here.

"HEY NERD," the distinct voice of Bakugo shouted out to wake him up, Zen-Aku focused in front of him and stared at the boy who disturbed his sleep, "look at the board dumbass," he pointed to the board where names were listed, with one for most, but two was beside Momo, three for him.

"Midoriya, we've been voting on who will be our class's representatives, since you and Yaoyorozu got the most votes you will be both the representative and the vice representative respectfully," Iida informed, though he looked dejected to the information, probably suggested and lost the vote.

"As the newly elected class representative I promote Yaoyorozu to the position, do with it what you will, I didn't vote so I shouldn't be in the office if I didn't vote, and all votes counted for me are disqualified as well," Zen-Aku stated and the others just gaped at him and his attitude.

"You do get that this is a big deal right, this means that you would have passed up on the opportunity to prove to pros that you're able to lead a team and therefore your own agency, right," Denki Kaminari asked the duke org, he just nodded his head and went back to thinking.

"Very well, I'll accept the position, but this was a good idea from Iida, so I think him being the deputy would be a good idea," Momo announced and everyone seemed fine with that, so Zen-Aku chose not to pay attention anymore and waited until the classes and hero course were here. Though apparently after lunch, which he was in the class the whole time since he didn't eat normal food today thanks to him and his kind eating pollution, he learned about an incident where the media got inside and caused a large incident in there, he didn't care for it since it was handled.

When everyone was seated and class started, Aizawa spoke up, "today's training will be a little different, you'll have three instructors, me, All Might, and another faculty member will be keeping tabs on you," he announced and got a few questioning looks from the others based on the break in. "Now, on to the training," he then held up a card that had 'RESCUE' on it, "rescue, you'll be dealing with natural disasters, shipwrecks, stuff like that," that brought a chorus of comments from various people about the training, which irritated him a bit, "guys, I'm not finished yet. What you wear in this exercise is up to you, I know you're excited about costumes," a button was pushed and opened some wall panels, "but keep in mind that you haven't gotten used to them yet and they might limit your abilities," they were all fully out now with their numbers on. "This special training's at an off-campus facility, so we'll be taking a bus to get there, that's all, start getting ready," Aizawa ordered and left so they could get their cloths and change into their hero clothing, though it was clear that everyone was going to where their costumes anyways.

Zen-Aku got changed into his dark armor just as everyone else did and went outside where Iida began blowing a whistle, "gather around, class 1-A, using your student numbers, form two neat lines so we can load the bus efficiently," he ordered but once on the bus the layout shot that down.

It was then that idle chatter went on until the frog girl, Asui if he was right, made a comment, "I would just like to point out an observation for a moment, about you actually," she said looking at Zen-Aku who was to her right, "that power of yours, it's not your standard quirk, is it?"

"That is because my quirk is from a legend," they all listened intently at him with anticipation, "my quirk is based off of a legend from before quirks and heroes, about beings that were said to be born from the pollution of the earth, they were called orgs, they all had two or more horns."

"Hold on there Midoriya, you said they have two or more horns, so what is your quirk if you only have one of them," Denki asked him, clearly not many did research on anything from the past other than those that have some connection to nature, that made this too long an explanation.

"Because my quirk is from the advanced form of those legends, I have the power of the duke org, similar to the regular orgs, but my power is more humanoid in appearance, and we also have only one horn, signifying their rank and status, I did my own research on this as well," he stated back.

"That is so cool, so you can have an awesome badass appearance like that and still you have more power other than that sword, that is so manly, still, I bet it's cool having a simple augmenting type, you could do a lot of flashy stuff with it," Eijiro Kirishima stated out loud. "My hardening is super strong and can destroy bad guys in a fight, but it doesn't look all that impressive," the boy hardened the skin in his arm only and showed it off a bit, his skin became more rocky in appearance and jagged, it also did make his skin cells more durable as well.

"You should never think that, it is not the power one has, it is the way one uses the power at their disposal that proves their worth, some may have more flash to their quirks, but that is not always for the best, yours could be used more versatility than others," Zen-Aku informed him.

"You really think so, seems like it'd be easier to be a popular hero if I had something flashier," the red head said while holding up his arm a little bit, his comment was true, but when it comes down to being a popular hero, if you seek the shallow to adore you, you give up the heroic essence.

"My navel laser's got the perfect combination of panache and strength," the blonde boy with the navel laser said, it was too flashy for Zen-Aku again, but it didn't mean that it didn't have its uses, and truth be told it could end up being quite powerful if developed further than it is now.

"It's way lame if it give you a stomachache sweaty," the pink girl said, Mina Ashido, the acid user was a bit on the bubbly slow and ditsy side, using only her slime and her limited brain power, but she should learn to use her brain to give the full effect of her quirk a better handle.

"Well, if any of our classmates have pro quirks, it's Todoroki, Bakugo, and Midoriya," Eijiro commented our loud and there were merits to the statement, but there was also flaws, Bakugo had no temperament for hero work, and Todoroki had emotional baggage more than likely.

"Like I said, quirks aren't everything, Bakugo has power but his personality is too rough and he lacks the temperament to be a hero at the moment, I've spent years of my life before I got my quirk being on the receiving end of his temper, at the moment he's not ready," Zen-Aku stated.

"What did you say, I'll kick your ass," Bakugo growled out at him, but the duke org ignored him, you'll regret the day you applied to this school you loser," again he's being ignored until he just yells out a, "I'LL KILL YOU ONEDAY YOU BASTARD," before scowling out the window at nothing.

"Hey, hey, we're here, stop messing around," Aizawa called back as they approached a large domed structure, a very large domed structure, just what kind of budget does UA work with to gain such a massive building, they stopped in front of it and got out to greet an… astronaut?

"Hello everyone, I've been waiting for you," apparently the one who spoke was a hero made for rescuing called Thirteen, known for her many rescues across the world, "I can't wait to show you inside," she made the gesture to come inside and they proceeded to enter the large structure. It was a large area that had many different disasters in it, "a shipwreck, a landslide, a fire, a windstorm, etcetera, I created this training facility to prepare you to deal with different types of disasters, I call it the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, but you can call it USJ."

Aizawa went to Thirteen to have a private discussion and something said that Zen-Aku listened in on, "hey, shouldn't All Might be here already, lemme guess, he booked an interview instead," he asked and that seemed like an exaggeration about what is going on with him, but who knows. Thirteen whispered, "actually, it's something else, apparently he did too much hero work on the way to school this morning and used up all his power," Aizawa sighed and muttered something under his breath about irresponsibility, though you couldn't really blame him for saving lives. Thirteen walked back over to them all and began speaking in a raised voice to get their attention back on the matter at hand with the reason being there, "excellent, before we begin, let me just say one thing, well, maybe two things, possibly three, four, five," everyone sweat dropped now. "Listen carefully, I'm sure you're aware I have a powerful quirk, it's called black hole, I can use it to suck up anything and turn it to dust," now that is where Zen-Aku saw where she was going with this, making sure these kids know that no matter the quirk or power, it could kill you.

"Yeah, you've used black hole to save people from all kinds of disasters haven't you," Uraraka commented out in the open with an over enthusiastic nodding of the head, it seems that she wants to be like her idol, the rescue work part of being a hero would play into her strengths.

"That's true, but my quirk could also quite easily be used to kill," Thirteen explained and that is when everyone else understood, "some of you also have powers that could be dangerous, in our superhuman society, all quirks are certified and strictly regulated, so their unsafety is often overlooked. Please don't forget that if you lose focus or make the wrong move, your powers could be deadly, even if you're trying to do something virtuous like rescue someone, and thanks to Aizawa's fitness tests, you have a solid idea of your quirk's potential," some of their potential at least. "Thanks to All Might's combat training, you likely experienced how dangerous your powers can be when used against other people, carry those lessons over to this class, today, you're going to learn how to use your quirks to save people's lives, you will only help, that's what being a hero is all about."

"Right, now that's over…," Aizawa started to say before electricity sparked around the dome structure, the fountain at the center of the building began to go in and out of function, then a dark purple spiraling portal appeared, it grew larger and larger until it formed two yellow eyes. "Stay together and don't move," the teacher ordered in alarm, "Thirteen, protect the students," people began to come out of the portal, most had mutant type quirks, some had less noticeable but still there quirks being shown off, Eijiro stepped forward to get a better look at them all. "Stay back," Aizawa ordered again as he put on his goggles and got ready for a battle, "this is real, those are villains," he stated and looked to be waiting until he mentally prepared himself for a battle with them, probably have to remind a few that they can't handle them right now.

"The only real heroes I see are Thirteen and Eraserhead, perplexing, according to the schedule we retrieved from UA, All Might should be here as well," that voice seemed to be coming from the dark purple that brought the large sum of villains into the USJ, it was silky smooth that held refinement.

"So, you scumbags used the press as a cover and sneaked onto campus," Aizawa surmised as the heroes continued to poor out from the portal, and more than likely others came through at different points of within the USJ, so there was little chance of avoiding the fight here.

"Where is he," Zen-Aku's duke org hearing picked up what could only be the one villain with hands on his face and pale blue hair, "I went through the trouble of brining so many friends who're eager to meet him, they want All Might, the great Symbol of Peace," he stated openly. He was standing on the fountain at the center of the plaza now, "can't believe he's not here, maybe if I kill a few kids, he'll come out to play," that is when Aizawa had enough and undid his scarf and rose his hair to get ready to fight all of the villains by himself which wasn't a good idea.

"What, real villains, no way, how could so many of them get into a UA facility this secure without the alarms going off," Eijiro asked out loud as he stared down at the large number of villains gathering down below all of them in the plaza, some of the students look downright terrified.

"Is the entire campus under attack, or is this their only target, either way, if the alarm sensors aren't being triggered then one of these villains must have a quirk masking their presence here, they carefully chose this isolated facility as an entry point at a time class was being taught. They're fools for trespassing here, but they've thought this out, whatever their plan they must have a concrete objective in mind, what is it," Todoroki questioned out loud as the others began to follow his logic, though most were actually starting to freak out from everything happening.

"Thirteen, get them out of here, and alert the main campus, actually, if they've got the ability to jam our sensors, then they might be jamming our regular communications too, Kaminari, try using your quirk to contact the school," Aizawa ordered the electric powered blonde.

"What are you going to do, you can't fight them on your own, even if you can nullify their quirks, your fighting style is not suited for this, you should take some of us for support, what better way to train then with actual experience," Zen-Aku told the pro hero who didn't like that logic.

"You want to help, fine, guard the path out, I'll leave it to you Thirteen," Aizawa stated before jumping down to meet the villains in combat, he began to cancel quirks left and right and used his scarf and physical ability to take down the villains one after the other expertly done as well.

The others were leaving back the way they came, except for Zen-Aku, who did as he was asked and stayed put while the others left to try and make it out, but as he watched he noticed the warp villain disappear into his own mist before coming back out in front of the door blocking their way. "There is no escape for you," the purple villains said, "it's a pleasure to meet you, we are the league of villains, I know it's impolite, but we decided to invited ourselves into this haven of justice to say hello, and besides, isn't this a fitting place for the symbol of peace to take his last breath. I believe he was supposed to be here today and yet I see no sign of him, there must have been some kind of change in plans we could not have foreseen, awe, well, I suppose it doesn't matter, I still have a role to play," the villains began to spread his dark warp energy out of himself.

That is when Bakugo and Eijiro decided to attack him from both his left and right side front resulting in a large explosion surrounding the warp villain, "did ya think we were just gonna stand around and let you tear this place to shreds," the smoke began to clear, as Eijiro said that.

"You live up to your school's reputation, but you should be more careful children, otherwise you might get hurt," the villains began spreading out his dark quirk, "I'll scatter you across this facility to meet my comrades and your death," just about everyone got swept up in the warping.

* * *

shipwreck simulation area

Zen-Aku was dropped out of the swirling purple vortex right above the water, headfirst in a diving position, he quickly flipped and shadow phased on the water, bouncing from one spot to the next until he was on the deck of the ship in the area he landed in, it was obvious where he was now.

It wasn't long before Mineta came crashing onto the deck as well, Asui climbed into the boat soon after that apparently she was the one to save the perv, "this is turning out to be a terrible day of class," she commented once she got on the boat and they could assess the situation more closely.

"Yeah, but we can't do anything about it here, we need to leave this place and get to the plaza, if they came to kill All Might then they must have a quirk that can take him on, something to counteract strength, so the best thing to use against him would be bladed weapons," Zen-Aku stated.

"Wait a minute, it's not like these guys can really kill All Might," Mineta spoke up looking like an angry toddler with that diaper on, "once he shows up he'll pound these villains until there's nothing left, doesn't matter what their quirks are," he spoke with passion, what an idiot.

"Think about it though, if the villains spent so much time planning this attack, then they've probably figured out a way to kill him, and didn't you hear what that smoke guy said, maybe we should worry a little bit about not getting tortured to death," Asui countered his argument. "Otherwise we might not survive long enough to see All Might again, and even if he does show up, who knows if he'll make it out in one piece," that was well said, she's blunt and able to think objectively, not relying on one man to hold up the world nor relying on other people to save you.

"No, the pros are gonna save us, right," Mineta turned to Zen-Aku and pointed to Asui frantically, "tell frog-boobs to shut up," that comment wasn't really what he was expecting, though why out of reflex he side kicked the guy into the wall and made an indent was beyond him, strange.

That is when villains in the water began to circle them all and began to shout up some threats to them, something about eating them, one in the back far away from the others said one comment under his breath about what he'd do to the frog girl, these villains were mindless thugs, no though. "Those villains clearly have an advantage in the water and assume that's where we'll be fighting," Zen-Aku commented to himself but the others still heard it, "they did come prepared for the water, but that just means they could have come prepared for many situations, ironic considering."

"Uh, what do you mean 'fight', are you crazy, these guys might be able to kill All Might and you think we can take them, did you hit your head when we got warped here, the best plan is for us to just wait for a real pro from UA to come and save us," Mineta argued with them, what a child.

"Never rely on others when you can do it yourself," Zen-Aku said with a glare to the baby, "and yet they sent a frog to the shipwreck zone, the fire zone would have been better suited for her and she clearly has a frog based quirk, that leads me to believe they are all inexperienced."

"Oh, I never told you my name did I, my name is Tsuyu Asui, but you can call me Tsu," the frog girl introduced herself and the duke org nodded to her request before she squatted down so they could talk in a low voice and begin to make a plan, "so let's talk quirks, I'll go first if you want." The duke org nodded, "obviously I can jump high and cling to pretty much any wall, and there's my tongue that I can stick out about twenty meters, oh and I can spit out my stomach so I can clean it, not really useful here and finally I secrete a toxic mucus, it just stings a bit though. We can probably only use my jumping and my tongue here though, forget the couple last things," Tsu informed them while the other boy looked ready to have a heart attack with what he just learned, it started when he heard the word mucus so he was probably thinking of something else.

"If you train that toxic mucus up more it could be very powerful, my quirk allows me to do what I call shadow phasing, becoming a shadow and moving at high speeds, enhanced strength, natural speed, agility, allows me to summon a sword and dagger and generate lightning form my horn. After I've trained enough I'm hoping to be able to grow to the size the old legends say that duke orgs of the past could also turn into, that is about it," Zen-Aku informed, leaving out the part where he could already do that, it wouldn't be any help here and more of a disadvantage.

"I've got these sticky balls," Mineta said as he plucked one off of his head, "their strength varies," he put it on the wall of the ship, "depending on how I'm feeling they might stick to something a whole day, they grow back as fast as I pull 'em off, but I'll bleed if I use too many."

"That would be good with the second part of my plan," Zen-Aku interrupted his explanation, "I can cause a torrent of water to send the villains away while in the water, and then it will come crashing back to the middle, where your balls will meet them and capture them without harm." A large water claw sliced through the ship they were on and Mineta screamed before anyone could stop him, "Tsu, you take the screaming child and get away form here while he continually throws his balls into the water," the duke org ordered and Tsu left to do as she was told.

Mineta screamed and Tsu grabbed him and jumped high into the air, Mineta throwing his balls all over the water in a rushing panic while Zen-Aku just shook his head, that boy will never be a hero, he brought out his crescent blade in firing mode and jumped to the railing of the ship. He charged up the familiar pale yellow light and even mixed in some of One For All with it to add to the power before launching it into the water forcing all of the water to disperse in a large amount, just as he said would happen, all of the villains were forced back some before coming back. Thanks to the result of Mineta's balls also being there, all the villains were stuck to one another as previously planned, and now thanks to the added bonus of water crashing against them, all their fight has been drained thanks to the beating it caused on their bodies, they won the first battle.

A tongue wrapped around Zen-Aku as he was pulled from the sinking ship, Tsu was obviously behind it, letting him save his strength for what is bound to happen, "we rounded them all up, not too shabby, you guys are amazing, and I guess we now passed the shipwreck zone," Tsu guessed.

They landed in the water some meters away from the villains that were stuck together, landing lightly in the water as Mineta chuckled, "I had a good poop this morning, which makes my balls stickier, they're not goin' anywhere," he told them as he was dragged through the water.

"Gross fact, but fine, I want you to pop off as many more balls as possible and make a pile of it, but first pop two off and Tsu I want you to hold one in each of your hands," Zen-Aku ordered and Mineta and Tsu looked to him at the strange order as they trudged through the water of the zone. "When we get to the plaza I want you both to get Aizawa out of there and then I'm going to take over to hold off time until one of the teachers can come and help, you two take Aizawa and get back to the top so he can aid them in getting a student out to get help as quickly as possible."

"What, Midoriya, you can't be serious, you want to fight those villains that we're not even sure if All Might can take them out, you'll die," Mineta commented and received a glare from the duke org for his statement, but it wasn't his fault that he didn't know that he had the strength.

"I hate to say it, but Midoriya might just be the only one of us able to take on the one to beat All might," Tsu said and got both to look at her, "if you think about it, he's the only one of us that has the skill with a blade to cut the one to kill All Might up and protect him, so he has to save us."

* * *

Central Plaza

Zen-Aku and Tsu, with a still whining and ball making Mineta, he was done when they reached the shore of the water zone and saw what was going on in the plaza, he placed the pile of balls on the ground in front of him while the villains were distracted with fighting Aizawa, who was slowing. Soon one of the villains that were just standing around were on the move and moved to attack at the same time Aizawa noticed and moved there as well, it was a guy with hands all over his body, he made to grab the teacher's head with his right while Aizawa went to elbow him with his right. Yet soon Aizawa's hair lowered, "it was hard to see when you were jumping around, but I've found your tell, it's your hair," the villain's quirk activated and he began to crack and crumble away at the teacher's elbow, "when it drops, it means you've stopped using your quirk. You've having to blink more often, don't push yourself too hard now, you might just fall apart, wouldn't that be a shame," he said before Aizawa had enough and activated his quirk to stop the villain's own before punching him away and backing up to get some distance between them.

"Aizawa's elbow is destroyed, but he can take out a few more villains, when that happens," Zen-Aku started to say before him and the rest got out of the water and had Mineta grab onto Tsu's back tightly, "I'm going to throw you into the pile of balls, you'll bounce off and fly their way."

"Which is where I stick the balls on my hands to grab Aizawa and pull him out of there and fall back so you can take over, got it," Tsu stated as she got into position with a crouch, that is when it happened, he finally took down the last of the villains before only the final two were left. Zen-Aku acted then and grabbed the two and slammed Mineta against his balls, sending both him and Tsu through the air, the big guy was beside of him, but the angle the were at, they grabbed Aizawa by his shirt back and let him fly away from the monster along with them.

They landed with a skid as Zen-Aku shadow phased to block the path of the villains that might go after them, the pale man with the hands on his face 'looked' aggravated now, "who are you, one of the brats that thinks he can take on real villains while your teacher recovers, how annoying."

Zen-Aku brought out his crescent blade and brought it to rest on his shoulder as he stared the two down, the hand villain kept scratching at his neck while the large black villain was just standing there as if waiting for his next set of orders, "I'm the one to destroy you," he charged in.

"Nomu," the villain with hands called out, "kill him," the beast moved then and raised his fist to slam it into the duke org before said man dodged by speeding up and getting past the strike as it slammed into the ground kicking up a small cloud of dust, out of that dust cloud came a dagger.

That dagger was attached to a black gloved hand that thrust upward and stabbed the Nomu where the jugular vein should have been, before bringing his crescent blade up as well and stabbing at the throat of the beast while also pulling his dagger out and spinning at the same time. Spinning to the right and ducking under a blind left fist downward this time he sliced through the stomach of the beast while also stabbing his dagger up and slicing the underarm of the left striking fist, he skidded to a stop a few feet past the Nomu who let out a screeching cry. It spun to the right while swinging his hand to backhand the duke org, who backed up just out of the behemoth's reach while bringing out his blade to slice the wrist of the Nomu as it left his own reach, it gave a cry again as it was indeed cut, but began to stitch itself back together.

"You can't defeat Nomu like that, idiot, he has enhanced stamina, strength and speed comparable to All Might himself, regeneration, and shock absorption," the hand masked villain commented while scratching his neck, "now Nomu, stop playing around and kill this brat before I get mad."

With that order the Nomu charged at Zen-Aku, this time it was the duke org that stood still and waited, which he didn't have to do for long because the beast was incredibly fast, impossibly fast for something that size, but it didn't matter because when he threw the punch, it was thrown. The punch was grabbed by Zen-Aku using One For All to the highest percentage he could, which is at forty percent, and shifted his weight in a spin before pulling down hard and throwing the Nomu onto the ground, but the beast wasn't done and got back up instantly to fight some more. It swiped at the duke org who rolled out of the way before jumping up and slamming his knee into it using One For All for an added boost and making the big brute stumble back, continuing to press the attack, he descended from the jump stabbing his dagger into the beast's shoulder. Using that as a grip he also sliced at the Nomu's back constantly with his crescent blade, and when the beast finally got enough sense to reach around and grab at him, he used his crescent wave to blow the beast's arm's back before jumping off while also slicing at the Nomu's spine.

"Didn't you hear me the first time," the raspy voice of the hand villain exclaimed at him, "the only thing you're doing is prolonging your suffering, you can't beat the bio-engineered anti-symbol of hope, the symbol of fear," he was sounding very aggravated, scratching his neck more.

"I heard you, but that means that it has an energy limit, enhanced stamina doesn't mean unlimited, ware him down enough and he'll heal slower and slower, you're creation has a large flaw in it," Zen-Aku informed as he brought his crescent blade into launch mode again.

Nomu charged again, this time faster and with more power, Zen-Aku swung his blade into an infinity pattern and shot out several crescent waves at it and it began to dodge, so the duke org shadow phased to the beast and bounced around him, at random times striking it with his blade. A few strikes at its ankle, most at its back and the back of its neck, some were placed at the stomach, it placed two arms to the side of its head as a way to protect itself, but it wasn't helping all that much until all of a sudden it swung its arm out and slammed it into the moving shadow. Zen-Aku blocked it with the back of his blade, but the force was still enough to send him flying back, the duke org stabbed his dagger into the ground to slow the force of the blowback, when he was slowed enough he brought his crescent blade to the other side and let him turn to face Nomu. He charged again, this time also sending crescent waves for it, they crashed into it enough to make it screech in pain, but when the duke org jumped to stab his blade into the Nomu's head, it delivered a punch to his gut from out of the smoke, forcing him to grunt in pain at its strength.

The Nomu then sent a right punch for his head, the duke org only barely managed to turn his head to spin with the punch and stab the bottom of his blade into the beast's wrist, he descended down the arm and began to cut along it up to the elbow before pulling out with a large yank. Zen-Aku spun with the yank and ducked under the arm to get in close to the Nomu to stab into its chest, but was surprised when instead of letting itself get stabbed, it jutted out his foot and kicked him back at an alarming speed, sending him back to the entrance stair. The duke org coughed up some blood onto the ground as he slowly rose, his hits were the heaviest he'd ever felt, in all his years he's never felt strength like that outside of his fights with All Might when they were training, so its enhanced strength reached to that level, this was bad.

The mist villain appeared beside the hand villain, "Tomura Shigaraki, the rescue hero is out of commission, but one there were students I was unable to disperse and one of them got outside of the facility," the mist villain told the handsy one, this Tomura Shigaraki, it was only a matter of time.

Shigaraki looked quite enraged at this and began to scratch his neck with more vigor than before, "Kurogiri… you fool… if you weren't our warp gate, I'd tear apart every last atom in your body," he growled out, he looked ready to freak out now and order the Nomu to go on a rampage then he didn't. He stopped scratching his neck and you could see the red on his skin where he kept scratching, "there's no way we can win if dozens of pros show up to stop us, it's game over, back to the title screen, and I was so looking forward to finishing this today, damn it, let's go home." Shigaraki ordered, but that didn't make sense, leaving at this stage where UA would only enhance their security, "but before we leave, let's make sure the Symbol of Peace is broken and wreck his pride, Nomu, kill that brat now, treat him like we would've treated All Might if he was here."

The Nomu screeched loudly from the order and charged for the duke org at astounding speed, and pulled back its fist, Zen-Aku charged as well holding his weapons at his sides as he did so, the beast flung his fist forward and the duke org jumped up over it intent on getting behind it. That plan failed once the Nomu grabbed his leg with his left arm and swung him down on the ground, the pavement cracked at the landing, this was the true strength of the 'Symbol of Fear', not bad, he twisted his foot out of the beast's grasp cut its wrist to ensure he'd let go of it as well. He sprang forward and watched everything as he aimed his crescent blade at the throat of the Nomu, but it was for not as the beast was far faster than before and kneed him in the gut before he could register what it was doing, the force from the hit sent him into the air a bit. Then it began hitting five hits into that same spot to keep him in the air, first was a right fist, then the left, right, left, and then a right fist, each fist sending him higher and higher into the air until after the last fist came a double ax handle to his back to send him to the ground.

Zen-Aku couldn't move, this beast just became as strong as All Might, to take him on and kill him, his thoughts were interrupted by the Nomu screeching again and jumping over him with its right fist cocked back and began to repeatedly pound into him creating a dent in the ground. When Nomu thought he had enough of that, it stopped the pounding and grabbed his left arm and swung him behind it before swinging him to the right and into the stairs leading to the exit, then swung him around to hit the other side of the stair before swinging him over head into them. It lifted up its foot and brought it back down stomping into his head, after that he stood back thinking that was enough and made his way back to Shigaraki, that is when all the other students saw the horrid sight of what his body had become as a result of his harsh pounding. He was turned upside down on the steps, laying in a cross position, his entire body looked like it had gone through a meet grinder, all cloth was gone from him and left scarred fur, the blood was so great that his armor looked to be stained crimson with the life liquid, a few students screamed.

"Good Nomu, there is no way he could survive that," Shigaraki stated with glee at seeing the damage his creation did to the hero in training, "now that he's good as dead, All Might will drown in despair and go from the symbol of peace to the symbol of failure, isn't it just great?"

Zen-Aku couldn't let them get away, if the right person got away, then help for them should arrive soon, but if it was someone else, he needed to keep them here and busy until help arrives, regardless of everything else, he has to move, with a shaking and bloody body, he began to rise. His body rose to a sitting position and looked up at the horrified looks on the student's faces, Tsu and Mineta got up top with Aizawa who was too fatigued to use his quirk, no doubt he already tried many times during that fight and it didn't seem to help any, even he looked horrified. No matter, he turned on his sitting form and began to rise while calling back to them, "where are you going," his voice made all the villains pause, even those that had woken up to the beating and began to just stand there and watch before making to leave themselves.

Shigaraki, who had turned around to leave via a warp gate, looked back just in time to see him, slowly rising and stared at his bloody form with wide eyes, "you shouldn't have the strength to stand," they all fully turned to him now to stare at what he's doing right now, "what are you?"

Zen-Aku was fully standing now, his legs still shaking from the thrashing he took, "my real name isn't important, my hero name is Zen-Aku, the duke org," he brought up his ever present crescent blade, "because you villains came to this place of learning to harm children to get All Might's attention. Yet you now have the attention of all pro heroes, present and future, everyone will be looking for you now, not because you are called villains, but because you have threatened to harm children and those in training to one day become heroes, and so the heroes of tomorrow will end you."

Shigaraki began to clap sarcastically, his shock had worn off, "nice speech brat, it reminded us quite a bit about All Might," he stopped clapping and slumped over a bit, "but you're barely standing straight, and All Might isn't here, so we're just going to kill you and leave."

Suddenly, as if answering some long heard prayer, the doors at the top of the stares burst open, creating a large cloud of dust covering the entrance, it drew the attention from everyone there, large, echoing steps were heard all around the USJ, and a large bulky silhouette appeared there. "I couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone wrong here when Aizawa and Thirteen didn't answer my calls, so I hurried over and ran into young Iida along the way, he told me of the villainy at work here," the large bulky form of All Might appeared and stopped at the top of the stairs. "Have no fear Students…," he reached up and grabbed hold of his tie and tore it off like it was nothing, "because I am here," he announced with his scowling face, wait, scowling face, well these villains just pissed off the wrong pro hero when the symbol of peace isn't smiling, it was funny.

That is when the man saw the battered and bruised form of his successor, his heart nearly stopped then, all that blood, how was he still alive, he looked physically broken, yet his eyes shown with anything but, "took you long enough," Zen-Aku said as he dropped to his knees.

All Might sped down and took out almost all of the villains except the last three and got his successor to the top of the stairs, "I'm sorry young Midoriya, I should have been here sooner," he told the duke org student as he gently laid him down so the others could check on him as well.

He turned to leave when his arm was grabbed by the injured inspiring hero, "don't hold back, he's been fitted with enhanced everything, shock absorption, and advanced regeneration, all designed to kill you at your best," he really hated having to say this part, "so from the start, go Plus Ultra."

The duke org began to fade in unconsciousness after that, he laid his head back on the ground and felt like he had to pass out, the amount of hits and damage that he took was too much for him, "worry not young Midoriya, they will all pay," All Might rose and looked back with a glare. Two of the three villains felt like they should flee now, flee for their lives and don't look back, Zen-Aku could feel it form here, their fear was all consuming from that glare, this had to be the worst time for his developed hero habits to get him injured he'd love to see their scared faces.

He must have passed out heavily from that point on, because the last time he opened his amber eyes, he saw the black form of the Nomu being sent flying through the ceiling in a large wave of power that shook everywhere in the USJ, he flew straight and true through the ceiling. He was only vaguely aware that he was being carried by all three of the girls, Uraraka and Tsu by his arms and Mina by his legs with help from Uraraka's zero gravity quirk to help aid them, when Sero commented, "um, did a villain just fly by, or am I goin' crazy," he asked them.

With a quick mental command, Zen-Aku made sure his crescent blade was safe, Tsu had it strapped to her belt behind her to keep it safe, "it was that brain dude," that comment was made by Sato if he wasn't mistaken, a student with more brawn than brain, but capable still.

"Ah… that's All Might for you, that's why he's the most amazing hero in the entire world," Mineta commented, wait a minute, why in the hell is it that Tsu is dragging his blade around instead of that little piece of shit, oh well, that was a problem for a different Zen-Aku, one not injured.

And yet, "Tsu," he rasped out and got her to look at him while he floated to a stop with everyone else, "you have my blade, let me grab it," she didn't understand but thought that maybe it was a comfort to him or something, so since she was on his left side it was placed in his left hand. With that it was put into launch mode by him and the blade glowed a pale yellow, " I don't have time to explain it to you, but when one of the other villains left goes for All Might, swing the blade in his direction, don't argue, just do it," with that command he passed out again from his injuries.

Tsu didn't know what to do, she was just asked to do something she didn't know if she should do, but Midoriya seemed pretty sure that this was the thing to do and told her to do it, he didn't even ask why she was carrying his sword thing, interestingly enough it was because only she could. That's beside the point right now, she had an obligation right now, and a few things to consider, what would happen if she didn't get rid of the energy, would the sword blow up, would it dissipate, but regardless, he asked to do it once one of the villains charge at All Might, but why. Without even thinking about it she was already moving with his sword in her hands to where All Might was, he just stood there and let smoke fly around him, not even moving as the other two villains charged him, this was it, she jumped over the three spectators and swung the blade. The pale yellow energy built up within the blade was shot forward in a crescent shape and struck both villains true and pushed them back to the water fountain of the plaza, All Might was just as surprised as them it seems, just as shots began to ring throughout the USJ, the teachers are all here.

In the end the leading two villains were able to escape and Zen-Aku was taken to Recovery Girl, yet she couldn't do anything since her quirk can't heal such a fatigued body, the only thing she could do is aid the paramedics in healing him with basic treatment on the scene when they could. Him being the only student injured in the battle and also the only one that can say he took on a high ranking villain while the others only took out the grunts, it was both a sad and honorable day, but after all was said and done, he was still the one with the worst set of injuries in the end.


	4. Starting a Sports Festival

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 4

Starting a Sports Festival

"You guys, did you watch the news last night, it was so cool that we got a few seconds of screen time, though I bet nobody noticed me hanging out in the background," Toru commented to everyone else who was in class the next day they had it, though the overall feeling in class was sad.

"Probably not, it is difficult to stand out when you're just gloves," Ojiro replied back to her, it was obvious what they were doing, lightening the mood, yet nobody could miss the empty seat right behind Bakugo and in front of Mineta, arguably the hero of the USJ for the students at least.

"We're totally big deals, those news channels love us, we're basically celebrities, it's kind of crazy," Denki tried to be his usual self in regards to false popularity, but his tone was just as sad as the rest of them, his quirk let him get captured too easily, he might have been able to help.

"Get over yourselves, the hero course that pumps out pros was attacked, one of their top students were hospitalized holding the villains off, and that's what they care about," Jirou stated bluntly while messing with her earphones, it was a true statement that didn't mean it was right.

"Who knows what would have happened to us if the teachers hadn't shown up," Sero commented with crossed arms and a hung head, and it was true, the teachers and a student had to by time until more teachers showed up, and in the end, the two teachers and student that helped were injured.

"Why'd you say that," Mineta screamed from his seat, he didn't want to think about that, "I'm gonna pee myself just thinking about it," he panicked just from that thought alone, it wasn't until Bakugo yelled at him to shut up did he do so, it was him that was pissed off instead of sad.

"Did you guys see All Might fighting that bird guy, that dude was super strong and he still destroyed him," Sato asked while punching the air, thinking maybe if they focused on something like the strength of All Might they might not be focused on their classmate getting hurt.

"Yes, his strength is truly a thing of wonder, able to take out something that Midoriya could only hold off until he arrived," Tokoyami's statement just brought the mood in the room back down considerably, it was one thing to be dark and edgy, it was another thing to not read the room.

"Hey Tsu," Mina said as she leaned back to talk to said frog girl who looked a bit down, "so," who had to catcher from leaning back too far, "do ya think Mr. Aizawa is going to teach class today, he did look a bit over fatigued," the frog girl just shrugged, not really wanting to answer that question.

The door opened and revealed a tired looking Aizawa, not the normal looking tired either, he looked to not have slept at all since the USJ attack, heavy bags were under his eyes, his eyes were also red, and he looked a bit paler than usual, "morning class," he said groggily.

"What a pro," Iida commented from the back before raising his hand, "Mr. Aizawa, I'm glad you're okay," they could faintly hear Uraraka say 'you call that okay', from the look of a large bandage under his right arm sleeve of his clothes, he still didn't look as bad as what he could have though.

He walked to the front of the room and only began speaking when he got to the podium, "my well-being is irrelevant, what's more important is that your fight isn't over yet," straight to the point with it, "the UA sports festival is about to start," he said ominously, that got everyone's attention.

"Wait a second, is it really such a good idea to hold the sports festival so soon after the villains snuck inside, they could attack once we're all in the same place," Jirou commented on behalf of those that were concerned about overall safety instead of showing strength after the initial threat.

"Apparently the administration thinks this is a good way to show that the threat has been handled and our school is safer than ever, plus they're beefing up security compared to past years, this is a huge opportunity for all students at UA, not something you can cancel because of a few villains. Our sports festival is one of the most watched events in the entire world, in the past, everyone obsessed over the Olympic games, but then quirks started appearing, now the Olympics have been drastically reduced in terms of scale and viewership. For anyone who cares about competition, there's only one tournament that matters, the UA sports festival, the top heroes everywhere will be watching, so this is where you will be scouted, meaning joining a famous hero agency and garnering you with greater experience and popularity. This is why the festival matters, if you want to go pro one day, than this event will open a path for you, one chance a year, three chances in a lifetime, no aspiring hero can afford to miss this festival, that means you better not slack off on your training," Aizawa informed them all.

Tsu raised her hand, "Mr. Aizawa, what about Midoriya, do you know his overall condition," she had been waiting to ask this, it was important because he was with her and Mineta in a group when they were warped to separate areas, and she was part of his last plan to help Aizawa out.

"Yes," Aizawa said before sighing, "his condition isn't bad, in fact he could have turned out much worse in terms of future ramifications, but the extent of his injuries and the amount of stamina he used made it to where Recovery Girl couldn't heal him at first, making it seem worse than it is. He'll be fine and should be back in plenty of time to not only participate, but also train long and hard for the sports festival," the class cheered at the news, especially Tsu who was very worried for her newfound friend in regards to villain battles, "if that is all then class is dismissed."

* * *

The day of the return

The day that Zen-Aku was all healed up and ready to return he wasn't in a good mood, not in a good mood at all, sure he saved people by holding off the villains from both escaping and targeting other students, but he had to be saved, he was beaten by a mindless beast in the end. Say what you will about him but he prides himself on not falling victim to mindless beasts, and in his muffled mind he actually let his crescent blade be used by someone other than him, that was more of a side note than an issue, but it was one of the problems he'll have to deal with now. The duke org hates losing to people, unless in the end there was a lesson involved that he needed to learn, like with how he lost to Merrick and ended up going on a long journey of atonement for him to learn that being a hero isn't really all bad, this loss showed him nothing like that. It just showed him that he still had a long way to go until he was able to fight beings like that Nomu in an even fight, even if he was holding back at first, he took a few hits that splintered his bones and brought down his ability to where he actually was beaten, it was not good. To top all of it off, his hero attire was sent in for repairs, not just any type of repairs, all of the cloth in his attire had to be redone and repaired, only his actual armor was fine if not a bit blood stained, it helps that his will brought out the armor and was directly linked to it.

Zen-Aku interrupted his own thoughts as he made it to the door of his class, he silently opened it and walked in, yet everyone still saw him and rushed him with questions and worry, the first to voice this being Iida, "Mr. Aizawa said you were alright now, but are you truly fine after the fight?"

Then came Uraraka, "the way you took on that Nomu thing was amazing, you were so agile and fast that he couldn't do anything at first other than take the slashes and stabs, it was so awesome," she commented without giving him enough time to answer the first question at all.

Mina was next on the list apparently, "and the way you ordered Tsu to take your own blade and swing an energy beam at the villains when they went after All Might, it was so cool," she bounced with excitement before thinking, "hey did you know that only Tsu could lift it, everyone else tried."

No he did not know that, but perhaps he could play that off as their animal appearance or something, "yes, it was quite strange, and it stayed out long enough to where you were put in the ambulance, I even tried and failed to lift it, do you know the reason," Tokoyami asked, well not now.

"Wait, I think I might have an answer," Toru offered before dragging the waiting patiently Tsu to quietly ask if he was okay into the middle of the crowd in front of all, "I think it's because they're destined to be together," that was completely wrong, that is not how this works at all.

"Oh… my… God, you are right, they look wonderful together," Mina said before she brought out her phone and started taking pictures of the two standing beside each other, Tsu was blushing form the idea, Zen-Aku had to end this before they all got the wrong idea about him and her.

"ENOUGH," the duke org barked and they all quieted down and looked to him, "that is not why, I transferred to her some of my org energy, that way if something happens and I can't send my blade back manually then she could carry it in case I failed to defeat it, that is all that it was."

The others looked on with understanding now, "so that was it, you were just covering all of the bases in case you got knocked out, nice thinking man," Eijiro commented with a pat to his back along with the praise, the duke org gave him his best deadpan stare before going to his seat.

The classes went on well after that, and soon lunch time came and just as Zen-Aku was about to leave the room, he was stopped at the door thanks to a loud lough and All Might coming into his view, "young Midoriya is here," everyone looked at him stunned, "lunch, ya wanna eat with me?"

That was a wonderful way to ask, just come up in front of everyone and yell in asking if he wanted to eat with All Might of all people, this day only barely started and already the duke org was getting a headache, "very well, but please stop making a scene, it's giving me a headache."

When they got to the lounge, it was discovered that the time All Might can be All Might has been drastically lowered, just didn't expect it to be fifty minutes, "that's about how long I can use my power now, I overdid it too many times," All Might stated while fixing some tea for them to drink. "That Nomu was a real tough customer, he took a lot outta me, at this point, I can barely even look like All Might for an hour and a half," the duke org looked like he should say something now, "you don't need to apologize, we are alike, you and me, now have some tea," he handed off a cup of tea.

"Thank you," Zen-Aku stated as he took the offered cup and opened up his mask at the teeth and drank some tea, when he brought the cup of tea down he looked to the pro hero, "you're days are numbered and it is only a matter of time that you retire, is this what you wanted to talk about?"

All Might shook his head, "I brought you here to talk about the festival, you have enough control over One For All and your own natural quirk to make a huge impact in the festival, I want to ask about what you plan to do in it and if you even have one," he took another sip of tea after that.

Zen-Aku thought for a moment, this was a problem, what tactic should he use to bring attention to himself, "there are many ways, I could dominate the competition, I could let it go back and forth between me and someone else, or I could do poorly at first then come back out and win it."

"Those are the three main types that many people do, for instance, imagine if you didn't have your natural quirk and only used One For All, yet you couldn't control it, you could do poorly at first and then come back to win it, or come back and try to win only to fail in the end. Someone like Bakugo or Todoroki would more than likely go for overall domination, both are strong and would easily want to prove that they are the dominating force overall, and nobody wants to go through a back and forth struggle if they don't need to," All Might explained.

"Yet that is only if I wish to win," Zen-Aku stated his thought openly, All Might looked to him for a moment, "what if while trying to win, I do something to get noticed by true heroes that have influence, what if I help those that would otherwise be left in the dust, showing what a hero is."

"Interesting," All Might commented before getting up and walking to the window to stare out it, "to be frank, I don't have much time left as the world's Symbol of Peace, soon I'll have to put that title to bed and some villains out there are startin' to notice that," he said solemnly while staring. "Someone has to step up and keep the people safe," he turned around to stare at Zen-Aku as the duke org stood as well, "I gave you my power for one reason: 'cause you will be the hero takes my place," he made a fist with his outstretched hand, "do you still feel the same way you did when we met?"

"Yes," Zen-Aku stated with determination, and it wasn't for the world, it wasn't for the people of the Earth like the ancient guardians, no, it was for himself, to prove that he's been able to find redemption and allowing the fates to show this by somehow letting him become a hero.

"Excellent, then the time has come for you to prove it," All Might told him seriously with a faint glow in the background to highlight his eyes, "this sports festival, it's something that the pros—no, the entire country will be watching very closely, I want you to think of this festival as your debut. You are the fledgling Symbol of Peace, the next All Might, Izuku Midoriya AKA the future pro hero Zen-Aku, I want you to introduce yourself to the world and proudly say 'I am here'," All Might informed him, so this was definitely going to be something big, the coming out of a future pro hero.

Zen-Aku thought about it for only a moment before replying, "I'll debut alright, but it won't be with your catchphrase," All Might rose an eyebrow at him for a moment, "I am not you, however that doesn't mean I won't make an impact, but worry not, for the world will see who I am."

All Might nodded, "good," All Might began walking back to the couch to sit down while asking, "you know how the sports festival is set up, right," he asked and the duke org nodded, Izuku knew therefore so did himself, it may be cheating to some but it was better than being weak. "SO you know you'll have plenty of opportunities to sell yourself, and don't forget that some heroes always aim for the top, while others happily settle, the difference between those two mindsets has a big impact on how far you go in the real world," he told him sagely.

"Worry not, my mindset has become quite a bit more confident then the crying child that you met so many months ago," Zen-Aku told him before raising, "now I must get to class, the rep and vice-rep will jump on my case if I'm late for lunch, and I don't need that right now," he walked out.

After the final bell had rung and they all began to pack up their stuff, the first one out the door was Zen-Aku, or would have been the first one out if a large gathering of students didn't block the path, "u-um, why the heck are you all here," Uraraka exclaimed in shock at seeing them.

"Do you students have some sort of business with our class, if so you should know that blocking the doorway is rude," Iida commented with his left arm at a ninety degree angle, though his comment about rudeness was ignored by the blockers who it was obvious to why they were here.

Zen-Aku scanned all of their faces, "how many here are here scout the competition for the sports festival," he asked out loud and to the amazement of the rest of the class, all of the crowd raised their hands, "now how many are here to declare war on the class because you didn't get into hero course?"

A single boy pushed his way through the crowd and stood before the duke org, "so this is class 1-A, I heard you guys were impressive, but I can't tell if you just sound like an ass or if you're genuinely curious about why we're all here," the boy had purple hair and a tired eye like Aizawa.

"Genuinely curious, the hero exam is rigged to let those with power based quirks excel while leaving those that are more suitable for hero work with less shinier quirks to rot, but I assume you're the one here to declare war on us because of that," the duke org asked and he nodded.

"I wanted to be in the hero course and like many others here I was forced to choose a different track as you said, but I have another chance, if any of us do well in the sports festival, the teachers can decide to transfer us to the hero course, transferring people out to make room. Scouting the competition is what many of those that are here are for, you're right about that, but as you also said, I'm here to let you know that, if you don't bring your very best, I'll steal your spot right from under you, so a declaration of war," the boy with purple hair stated plainly.

"Very well, declaration has been noted," Zen-Aku stated before making to leave and stopped once he got past the crowd, "and be sure to bring your best as well, I wish you good fortune in the 'war' to come," he kept walking away after that and according to Eijiro, his exit was manly as hell.

* * *

UA Sports Festival

Zen-Aku was waiting in the room given to the class to wait for the opening ceremony to start them out, he was leaning against the wall farthest from the door with closed eyes as he waited, "awe man, I was totally hoping I could wear my costume," Ashido whined out in the open.

Ojiro turned to her, "at least everyone'll be in uniforms, that'll keep things fair, right," he asked her back, everyone was in their gym uniforms, all the students were regardless of class, that way no hero costume could be used to take advantage of the other students that didn't have one.

"I wonder what they have in store for us in the first round," Sato wondered nervously while ringing his hands, you could see small beads of sweat on him, he was overly nervous about showing his skills to people, not surprising considering how his quirk makes him less intelligent.

Zen-Aku listened to all of them, they were all too nervous about this and that can hinder their ability to perform at their best so they can succeed here, though they are all still young, and that is when Iida came in, "everyone get your game faces on, we're entering the arena soon."

Zen-Aku got off the wall that he was leaning against and began walking to the exit, "Midoriya," the voice of Todoroki blocked his path to the door, what did he want, "from an objective standpoint, I think I have the advantage over you," the divided boy announced in front of everyone. "However, you've got All Might in your corner helping you out, I'm not here to pry about what's going on between you two, but know that I will beat you," he declared again in front of everyone with quite the serious look on his face, and his shown with a strong determination.

"There's a lot of declarations of war lately," Denki commented from his seat as Eijiro got up from his seat to say something to Todoroki, and the duke org could only guess as to what it was, but couldn't the bicolored boy do this before now, or even not do it at all and just participate.

"Yeah, what's the big deal, why are you picking a fight with all of a sudden, and right before we get started," Eijiro pointed out as he placed his right hand on Todoroki's right shoulder, a lot of people were confused as to why Todoroki would do this right now, though not all of them were.

"We're not here to be each other's friends," Todoroki shrugged off Eijiro's hand and turned to walk away, "don't forget, this isn't a team effort," he said as he walked away to most likely head outside, however he was stopped when the duke org grabbed his shoulder roughly and spun him.

"If you ever tell me that again and presume to know me well enough to say you're stronger when you're going about everything with half of your power," Zen-Aku began before grabbing the boy by the throat and forcing him against the wall, everyone jumped up in shock at the action. "Then make no mistake, you will lose, everyone else is going with all of their strength all year, and yet you have only ever used your fire to thaw what you've frozen, so never declare something like that to me again when you have yet to deal with your own issues," he forcefully let go of him. "And this is a team effort, or have you forgotten that in one of the events there is always an event that has teamwork in it, groups, allies, whatever you wish to call it, but it might help in the long run if you decide to be better than a spoiled brat," he walked out after saying that, slamming the door.

"Hey, make some noise all you rabid sports fans, get those cameras prepped, win need a hoards, this year we're bringing you some of the hottest performances in sports festival history guaranteed, I've only got one question before we start this show, are you ready? Let me hear you scream as our students make their way to the first stage," Present Mic announced as the class got to the entrance, that is where Zen-Aku began to play his flute as they all walked out, everyone was entranced, the class just followed after him as he played his flute to the center. "If you're just joining us, welcome to the UA sports festival where up and coming heroes leave everything on the field as they fight for the chance to achieve worldwide fame celebrity, this first group is no strangers to the spotlight, you know them from withstanding a villain attack. The dazzling students lighting up your TV with solid gold skills, the hero course students of class 1-A," Present Mic announced as the students got closer to the center of the arena with the entire audience was still enraptured at seeing Zen-Aku and how he played his flute in the entrance. "They haven't been getting near as much screen time, but this next group is just full of talent, welcome hero course class 1-B," Present Mic announced as the class came in through the gate, "next up is general studies classes C,D, and E, support class F,G, and H, business classes I,J, and K. Give it up for all of UA's first year contestants," Present Mic announced again and the crowd cheered while some of the other course students didn't look too enthusiastic, especially given that they're just there to make the rest of the hero course look good.

When everyone was gathered, Midnight was there to greet them, "now the introductory speech," she announced while in her standard attire looking like a dominatrix, "and for the student pledge we have Izuku Midoriya," that has made with a growl of hate from Bakugo followed up by it.

Zen-Aku walked past the students and slowly made his way towards the microphone, he was never good with speeches, but this was good practice, "no matter the class, no matter the background, no matter the quirk, no matter if you have a quirk, all of us are still human beings. For us to win is in our nature, for us to compete is within our will, but do not forget that everyone has a chance to win this festival, everyone has what it takes to succeed, regardless of their position, so let us all have fun and do well," he bowed to the cheers as he stepped down.

Midnight nodded approvingly at his words before moving along, "without further ado, it's time for us to get started, this is where you'll begin to feel the pain, the first fateful game of the festival, what could it be," a board behind her began to spin until it stopped on the obstacle race. "To da, all the present classes will participate in this traitorous contest, the path is four kilometers around the outside of the stadium, I don't want to restrain anyone, at least in this game, as long as you don't leave the course, you're free to do whatever your heart desires. Now then, take your places contestants," Midnight announced to everyone before they made their way to the starting position, and got ready to burst out of the stadium in a competition of speed, which gives a huge advantage to Zen-Aku with his powers to avoid or go through any obstacle, "begin."

As soon as that was sounded, Zen-Aku shadow phased past a crowded tunnel by going back and forth between walls, until he was out, just in front of Todoroki who froze the students still trapped in place with his ice, yet some got past it and went over their fellow trapped students. The duke org continued to run ahead and only barely looked back to see what happened, as the second obstacle came in, it was the robots from the entrance exam, every single one of them, even the large zero pointer, but Zen-Aku knew he shouldn't waist time in attacking them. Instead he kept running without looking back or hesitating and jumped past the fingers of one going in to grab him, landing on the arm without making a sound as he sped up the arm and dodged the incoming left robotic hand that tried to grab at him with a jump before shadow phasing. He landed on the ground behind the line of zero pointers with ease and kept running, just as Todoroki began to run between the legs of the zero pointer he froze, meaning that the duke org was still in the lead, he began to run faster with One For All and his org energy in his legs.

By the time everyone else got past the robots and Todoroki got to the end of the second area that housed the robots, Zen-Aku was already on the third obstacle, the tightrope pitfall, without hesitation he jumped off the cliff and went as far as he could before shadow phasing down. He landed on a rock platform before running and jumping again, doing the same thing as he did with his last jump he began shadow phasing until he was to the platform just before the edge that led to the final obstacle, he just jumped this time and landed with a single foot before running. The last obstacle was a minefield, and the duke org already knew he had this place won, normally the faster you go the heavier you are, meaning pressure that is what activates the mines, yet for the duke org, his shadow phasing has a secret not many know, it has no weight. So he shadow phased through the final obstacle and was able to get by it faster than anyone else, and by the time Todoroki got to it, the duke org was already across it and calmly running to the finish line while thinking to himself and the next events that would come after this.

'If I'm right then the next event should be something with teamwork in it, since the first event was only the race where individuals compete against everyone, now is time to show off their teamwork before a tournament is held,' Zen-Aku thought to himself as he ran the finish.

"There you have it folks, the first-place finisher, Izuku Midoriya is our champion," Present Mic announced to them all, after some time with the crowd cheering, many other competitors began to pile on in as well, but they were all focused on the first place, and how easily he won the race.

Soon Tsu hopped on over to him and told him, "you did so good, I never imagines that you would get first place so easily," she complimented him, he nodded with a grunt and he saw her smile, before walking off, that girl is one that he wants on his team, depending on what the event is.

"The first game for the first year's is over, and what a game it was, now let's take a quick look at the standings, shall we," Midnight offered, on a screen showed the rankings, 1: Midoriya, 2: Todoroki, 3: Bakugo, 4: Ibara Shiozaki, 5: Juzo Honenuki, 6: Iida, 7: Tokoyami, 8: Sero, 9: Eijiro. 10: Tetsutetsu, 11: Ojiro, 12: Yosetsu Awase, 13: Tsu, 14: Shoji, 15: Sato, 16: Uraraka, 17: Momo, 18: Mineta, 19: Mina, 20: Koda, 21: Jiro, 22: Sen Kaibara, 23: Kosei Tsuburaba, 24: Denki, 25: Kojiro Bondo, 26: Reiko Yanagi, 27: Hitoshi Shinso, the rest were not mentioned by name. "Only the top forty-two will advance to the next round, but don't be to let down that you didn't make the cut, we have prepared other opportunities for you to shine, now the real fun is about to begin, the chance to fully move yourselves into the limelight, give it your best. Let's find out what we have in store for you next, will your wildest fantasies come to life, or could it be the waiting is torture, prepare yourselves for this," Midnight announced as the rotating screen stopped and showed that it would be a cavalry battle, what was that. "Allow me to explain, the participants will form teams of two to four people as they see fit, in theory, it's the basically same as a regular playground game, but there is one difference, each player has been assigned a point value based on results from the obstacle course."

"I get it, a point-based system like the entrance exams, that seems pretty simple, and it also means that each team will have a different point value based on which students are on it," Uraraka commented to herself out loud, with Mina exclaiming her support of the theory.

" Maybe you should shut up and let me explain it to you, now then, the point assignments go up by increments of five, starting from the bottom, for example forty-second place is worth five points and forty-first is worth ten, and the point value assigned to the first-place contestant is." She pause for dramatic effect, "ten million This is survival of the fittest with those at the bottom with the chance to overthrow those at the top," Midnight really explained the rules, and set a target on the back of Zen-Aku, it's not that bad really, he's use to being a target so fine. "First years, these are the rules you'll abide by, the game itself will last fifteen minutes, individual point values will be added together to reach your team total, everyone will know how much you're worth thanks to your headbands, swipe as many headbands as you can to raise your team's score. Stolen headbands must be worn from the neck up, the more you steal the harder it will be to manage them, and another thing, even if your headband gets stolen or your team falls down, you can keep playing until time's up," Midnight announced and let a few chatter go on inside the crowd.

On a side note, Zen-Aku keeps feeling someone stare at him, turning back slightly to see who it was and he sees a girl with two horns protruding from the sides of her head and pointing up, she keeps staring at him until she notices that he noticed her staring and bowed her head in shame. He doesn't know who she is but he can't worry about it now, nor can he jump to any conclusions, she has horns, but so does Mina, neither of them feel like an org either, so jumping to conclusions will not help him, it will only distract him, so he will not act on any suspicion that he may have.

"This is going to be ruff, you can use your quirks as much as you like, but there are still rules, make a team fall down on purpose and I'll slap you with a red card, you'll be disqualified, now you have fifteen minutes to build your teams, I recommend you get started," Midnight ordered them.

Zen-Aku didn't have to waste much time, he already knew who he wanted on his team, he walked up to Tsu, grabbed her by the back of her gym uniform, she didn't know what was happening until she looked back and saw him holding her up and carrying her somewhere with ease of strength. The next one he grabbed was Uraraka who didn't know what to do because everyone else had their team already it seemed, so when she felt herself being lifted up, she didn't know what was happening until she looked to her side to see Tsu in the same position as her, carried by Zen-Aku. It wasn't until they came upon someone else approaching them were they let down, it was Mei Hatsume, a girl in the support course of the school, one of the only ones not in class 1-A and B that made it through the very first event, it seemed like this was going to be a team now.

"Team up with me, person in first place," Mei said and got right up in his face, he pushed her back out of his face and only nodded, "for introductions, I'm a student in the support course, name's Mei Hatsume," she lifted her goggles, "I'd like to use your current fame to my personal advantage."

"How blunt of you," Zen-Aku stated dryly, "but fine, you're inventions get to be in the spotlight and we win, does anyone have any questions as to why I chose you, or do you have theories on why," he asked the others, and to be honest, he didn't think he'd have to explain it to Tsu or Mei.

"You chose Ochaco because of her ability to make things weightless and Mei for her inventions, then there is me with my leaping ability or strong legs, either way you're planning on running out the clock with our skills, right," Tsu theorized with a finger to her chin while looking up at him.

"Yes, wait," Zen-Aku said before going to Mei and picking her up with only his right hand and then set her down, "I was right," he turned to Tsu, "you will be our rider, Uraraka will be our left leg, Mei will be our right, I'll be in the front because of my superior speed and maneuverability." He turned to look at Mei, "I assume you have brought some kind of footwear that makes it easy to move," she nodded vigorously, "good," he turned to Uraraka, "while you and her wear that I'll pull and you make us all weightless with your quirk, any questions?"

Tsu and Mei shook their heads, the plan was sound to them, it had no flaw and relied on their natural skills to all support each other, making it a true team effort, "um," they turned to Uraraka who spoke, "you're not going to try anything are you, like the last time we were paired together?"

Oh, she was frightened of him since that time during combat training where he showed that villains often have different things on their mind then fighting villains, "I am sorry if I scared you, I only wanted to make sure you understand that not all villains only care about combat."

"I… I get that, it's just really scary when that happens to people who barely know each other, and since it happened we haven't exactly had time to discuss it because you honestly scared me," Uraraka stated, the duke org bowed his head and so did the other two, "but we can talk after."

The others perked up at hearing this, "very well, to ensure that we all succeed and are able to talk, let us all at least make it to the final round of the festival, are we all agreed," Zen-Aku asked them all and they all nodded, they turned in their team and got their 10,000,295 headband.

Soon the buzzer sounded, "oh goody, it's time to get this party started, after 15 minutes to pick teammates and talk strategy, 12 cavalry teams are preparing to go head-to-head," Present Mic announced, "come on, everyone get your hands in the air, it's time for an arena-thumping UA battle royale!"

Zen-Aku dug his feet into he ground for a good grip, Tsu fastened the headband around her head, Mei was grinning at the chance to show off her 'babies', and finally Uraraka lightened everyone and the inventions up to the point they had increased mobility, almost completely weightless. After forming their team they discussed the strategy, they all knew their part and what to do in any situation that came up thanks to the duke org's planning, they didn't even need verbal commands to enact a plan, just do what needs to be done and nobody could catch them to win.

"Begin," Midnight called out and everyone decided to rush them, yet Zen-Aku was ready for that so began running to the right using One For All first and got past the others with no time to catch them, one boy tried to sink them into the ground, but the trick was obvious thanks to discoloration. So it was easy to avoid with his superior speed, Jirou, who was the lead of Toru's team, tried to use her earphones to attack, but with a quick swinging motion where the others slid to behind him, the duke org blocked them with his horn, making the attack useless to attacking them.

Zen-Aku corrected them and began running again and avoided anyone that came after them with quick swings around them to avoid their feet being caught, at one point Mineta came up to them covered by Shoji, with Tokoyami in there as well, but the duke org dodged his attacks easily. After that they decided to get some more breathing room, so all together they jumped up, thanks to Uraraka affecting their gravity, they launched high into the air with some more assistance from Mei's inventions, a jet pack attached to Tsu's back, they were basically flying for a while now. That of course is when Bakugo decided to attack them using his explosions to reach them in the air, of course nobody expected Zen-Aku to move in mid air and flip everyone over, literally, and bring his heel down on Bakugo's head sending him falling to the ground before his team caught him.

Team Asui landed safely on the ground and kept running, avoiding everything while paying attention to everything as well, even witnessed class-B stating that they threw the qualifier to play the long game, so they wouldn't go after their own headband, sadly, it was short lived. They had to stop because team Todoroki was now in front of them, it was now time for them to face each other, yet it was the duke org's team that had the advantage, so Denki used his lightning to shock everyone else that came before Todoroki froze them all after Momo made insulation. After that he took their headbands and made sure he was in the top four at least, after that they trapped team Asui with ice, then using the same trick to shock them with lightning, but Zen-Aku used his own attack by bringing his right hand to his face and then sending it back out. This counteracted Denki's lightning with his own darker lightning, Tsu used her tongue to whip at them after that and force them back, being able to keep them away, doing this for the last five minutes until they were sure time was on their side and they couldn't act against them.

It wasn't until Iida started whispering something to his team that Zen-Aku smirked, Tsu saw what was going on and as soon as the smoke started to come out of Iida's engines, she jumped high into the air, zero gravity and a jetpack that Mei had given her just in case keeping her in the air. During plan making Zen-Aku asked for some mostly unknown functions of engines, Mei told him a few things, mainly some theories she had read about quirks like Iida's, leading to a theory about what Iida himself can do, "how could you have predicted it, I told no one of my power," Iida questioned.

"You think just because you don't tell us we can't know," Zen-Aku replied back, that naïve thinking would get them all killed if they didn't step up, "your quirk acts the same way an engine does, though with only a minor difference, you can't move now can you," guessed to the boy.

Tsu launched her tongue out to her team where the duke org grabbed it and yanked her back where she twisted her body to land right on her seat, "when you told us that detail Mei, I didn't think it applied to Iida, thank goodness we went with Midoriya's plan rather than mine."

Todoroki scowled at them from the other side of the barrier he made while Momo made him a pole before he coated it with ice, that is when Bakugo broke through the barrier and made for team Asui the same time that team Todoroki ran at them in normal speed thanks to Iida's quirk. That drawback was really something when you consider that speed advantage that it gives, but useless when you consider that now they have to go up against Bakugo and Tsu who has the better range of distracting ability, but sadly the contest was for team Asui thanks to one thing.

"Time's up," Present Mic announced, time was on their side, "and with that the second round is officially over," everyone let go of one another as Tsu jumped off them, "now let's take a look at who our top four teams are," the announcer stated again, "in first place, team Asui!"

"And it was all thanks to your plan Midoriya, thank you," Asui stated with a nod of her head and a small smile, Uraraka and Mei smiled as well, Uraraka because of her own private family reasons, and Mei because her 'babies' were showcased for so many support companies to see and view.

"In second place, team Bakugo," Present Mic continued with the ranking announcement, said team didn't look happy about their placement, Bakugo looked pissed about losing to team nerd, "in third place we have team Shinso," oh, now when did they get out of zero points, very strange. "In fourth place we have team Todoroki," that team also didn't look happy about their placement, they barely got in, "now how about we take a lunch break before we start the afternoon festivities, see ya soon, hey, Eraser Head, let's grab some food," and that's how the event ended.


	5. Fighting Tournament

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 5

Fighting Tournament

During the lunch break and before Zen-Aku could move to eat something, someone tapped him on the shoulder, he turned to see the girl with two horns poking out the sides of her head, she was staring at him and bowed, "I'm sorry sir, but would you mind talking somewhere in private?"

The girl was strange, she seemed to be from a different country than Japan, and yet she felt like something else now that she was closer to him, "very well," the duke org stated and motioned for her to lead the way to somewhere private, she began walking away while hanging her head low.

"Wait, Midoriya," they turned to see Todoroki come up to him just as he was about to follow the girl, "first I wish to speak with you about something," now this was a choice, should he go with Todoroki first or the girl, Todoroki will give information on why he doesn't use his left side, however.

"No Todoroki, if you wish to talk about your left side you should have done so earlier when you had a chance, and at the moment you don't interest me," he turned and began walking away from him and let the girl lead him to a secluded place just inside the arena in the hallway before exiting.

The girl still had her head down and didn't say a word for a few minutes before suddenly dropping to her knees and bowing low on the ground, "please forgive me for not introducing myself to you before mister duke org," that drew even more attention, "my name is Pony Tsunotori, I'm a half-breed."

"Half-breed," Zen-Aku asked with a soft growl, the girl froze before shaking again, half-breeds were not looked down upon, but they were still rare in his time, even before his imprisonment of a mask they were rare to only have one actual recorded in history, "who was your org parent?"

The girl sit up and kept her head down and looking away, "well, to be honest my org ancestor was Toxidrax, the son of two duke orgs by the name of Toxica and Jindrax," he had no idea those two still roamed around but where are they now and why isn't there a full org before him now. "They died after their son was born and fully trained, a random ranger found them and destroyed them, that was all I was told," well that explains it, random power ranger though, strange, "Toxidrax survived though and went into hiding, until quirks started showing up at least. After that he thought it was safe to come out of hiding, and he was right, he even fell in love along the way and then they had their daughter, and then was taught what was taught to her father, and that tradition continued until eventually it came down to me, org and quirk combination."

Now Zen-Aku understood, "so you're the first in your family to have both quirk and org powers," Pony shook her head to his statement, "your human blood has diluted your org ability," again she shook her head, "your quirk and org ability have combined into one," on that one she nodded.

"My quirk parent is my mom, my father is my org parent, the past org ancestors all… mated," she blushed at this part, "with those that didn't have a quirk, until my father met my mother, who has a quirk dealing with cannons, like all of her family, so my quirk is something call Horn Cannon. It allows me to use my horns like projectiles, shooting them from me, concealed in the shootable horns though are my actual horns, smaller than normal horns, but are still there, the outer shell horns that I shoot is an added layer of protection for my actual horns."

"Meaning that nobody notices them at all and so nobody also can get to your weakness," he asked and she nodded with a smile on her face, "that is actually quite clever, don't tell anyone you have a two layered set of horns and they don't bother looking, so you won't die if they get chopped off."

"Yep, though since I'm still considered a half-breed I don't know if breaking my horns off will actually destroy me or not, I only know that where I'm more human than org, my horns upper layer horns might just become more frail or slower when I use my quirk," Pony admitted. Then she brightened up and pulled a book from her pocket and opened it up, "I also wanted to ask you what happened to you, Jindrax and Toxica only ever said that after master org was defeated you left and they never heard from you, what happened to you and why are you a student now?"

"That is a complicated tale to tell, but we have enough time," he sat down on the ground in front of her with his right arm propped up on his right knee, "after master org was defeated, I actually decided to travel on a quest to find redemption, yet I didn't know how, so an old friend helped."

* * *

The Final event

"Get those foam fingers in the air, it's almost time for the last round, but before that, good news for everyone who didn't make the finals, since this is a sports festival, we've prepared some super fun side games that everyone can participate in," Present Mic announced to get everyone excited. "We've even brought in cheerleaders from America to get your blood pumping," that is when Zen-Aku saw a very unnerving sight, "hold up, looks like class 1-A is goin' full-on fanservice," he announced that because all the girls of 1-A were in orange cheerleader uniforms.

"What, you tricked us, you're gonna regret this," Momo shouted at Mineta and Denki, apparently they were the ones that tricked them into doing it, "why is it that I always end up falling for that little pervert's stupid schemes," she asked as she dropped to her knees, this happened before?

Uraraka went to pat at Momo's back for comfort while Jirou threw down her pompoms, yet Toru cheered, "well, we do have a little time before the finals start, and I kinda like these, uniforms, so… how 'bout we just roll with it," she asked as she shook her body wildly, sort of.

Before Tsu could comment on Toru's moves or something, Zen-Aku asked her, "I thought you were the smart one, did you really fall for that," his own deadpan was on par with her own usual deadpan and the question made her turn to face him since he was behind the group of girls.

He was actually leaning against the wall while staring at them with deep amber eyes, she thought for a moment before saying, "I never really thought about it, I just went with what I was told by the class representative," she replied back, they stared at each other for a moment before breaking.

"Have fun competing in these little side games everyone, after they're over, the sixteen students from the four teams will be duking it out in a one-on-one tournament-style fighting competition, I promise you're not going to want to miss these epic matchups," the final round was finally announced.

"Aw, yeah, finally getin' the chance to show what we're made of," Eijiro commented with excitement while looking at the board, "I watch these finals every year, and now I'm actually in them," he sounded really pumped for it as well, especially since this was his first chance.

"Yeah, and I love that it's a tournament this year, the final's always a one-on-one competition, but since they switch it up every time I can't wait, I still remember last year's foam sword-fighting match," Sero commented to himself out in the open, he was relishing the chance this year.

"Come closer to draw lots to see who you're up against, then enjoy the pleasure of the recreational games before we start, the sixteen finalists have the option of competing or sitting out to prepare for battle, I'm sure you all want to conserve your stamina," Midnight announced.

"Um, excuse me," Ojiro raised his hand to get the teacher's attention, "sorry, but I'm withdrawing," that shocked most of everyone else participating, "it just wouldn't be right, I barely remember anything from the cavalry battle until the very end of it, I… think it was that guy's quirk." He said and only Zen-Aku could tell who it was, the leader of the team was Shinso, "I know this is a great opportunity, I wish I could take advantage of it, but my conscience won't let me, I've thought about it and everyone gave their all in round two, but I was just someone's puppet. No way, I don't wanna advance if I don't even know how I got here, it wouldn't be fair," the girls began trying to change his mind saying that they didn't do much either, "that's not it, I'm talking about my pride here, I refuse to give that up," there was a short pause, "also why are all the girls dressed like that?"

"Nirengeki Shoda from class 1-B," a short chubby kid walked to Midnight, "I think I should withdraw for the exact same reason, regardless of how strong I am, this isn't how I wanted to get here, it would go against the values of the festival to advance without earning my spot," he declared.

There was a brief pause for a moment before Midnight made her decision, "this sort of talk is incredibly naïve, my boys, that turns me on, Shoda, Ojiro, you're withdrawn," okay, that is fine, but did we really need to hear the other stuff, "we'll have to move two students up from fifth-place."

That was technically team Kendo, who said, "we were frozen most of the time, honestly we barely did anything in the cavalry battle, you should choose from the group that kept fighting the whole time, team Tetsutetsu, I'm not doing this as a favor either, it's just fair," she said with a smile.

The lots were chosen and after placement, "and so, Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki have advanced to the final, take a look at the brackets my dears, these are your opponents," Midnight announced, "it was Shinso vs Zen-Aku, Todoroki vs Sero, Shiozaki vs Denki, Iida vs Mei, Mina vs Aoyama. Then you have Momo vs Tsu, and then Eijiro vs Tetsutetsu, and then finally is Bakugo vs Uraraka, so it seems that Zen-Aku is now able to give her payment for what he did in the battle against her and Bakugo, that was easy, Bakugo was beyond predictable when it came to his fights.

"Now I have your name, Izuku Midoriya right," a boy behind Zen-Aku asked, he turned around form a moment to see it was the one from the declaration of war delay after class, so he was Shinso and was the reason Ojiro felt like he had to give up, "you excited about the fight?"

The duke org would have replied if he didn't feel a slight pull on his consciousness, having previous experience with mind control helps pinpoint what to look or feel for, so he didn't reply and just nodded, before walking away, he didn't need to be told not to talk to him, he knew.

"Okay, let's press pause for a momentary interlude, before the battles begin, it's time for some balls bouncing side games, first how about a scavenger hunt," Present Mic announced and the other left to participate in it, Zen-Aku on the other hand left and decided to get ready for his fight. Before long came time for the battles to start, "hey sports fans, are you ready, now it's time for the real battles to begin, can you feel the excitement, our competitors are on their own now, sometimes heroes have only themselves to rely on. Heart, skill, strength, wisdom, courage, they'll have to use all these things to rise to the top," he announced again when it was time to begin the last event, the tournament was about to start and right now Zen-Aku was waiting in the hallway about to go out into the ring to begin his match.

"Hey," he heard someone call behind him, he turned to see All Might, "sorry I haven't said hi, you've been great," he was in his skinny form so at least he wasn't booming that out, "you've been doing great so far, and the way you entered, that was awesome, so do you best, alright."

Zen-Aku nodded and turned to wait for his announcement, "alright audience, let's get right to the good stuff and not hold off these finals any longer, welcome our first fights," a picture was shown on screen with both competitors, "wow, doesn't he look like a feral beast like that. It's Izuku Midoriya from the hero course vs Hitoshi Shinso from general studies, who really hasn't done anything to stand out yet, the rules are simple, immobilize your opponent or force them out of the ring, you can also win if you make your opponent give up or cry uncle. Bring on the injuries because we've got our very own recovery girl waiting on standby, so put your morals aside and don't be afraid to fight dirty, but no deaths are allowed, real heroes put villains in jail, not kill them."

Zen-Aku focused his eyes on his opponent, "so you can just give up huh," Shinso asked the duke org, again he felt that familiar pull in his mind, "in a way, this is a test of how strong your spirit is, if you know what you want your future to hold for you, you can't worry about what other people think." Present Mic asked if both were ready but he was ignored, "that monkey was going on about his pride earlier," the match was called to start, "but I just think he's an idiot for throwing away his chance like that," now that was just said to get a reaction from the duke org, so he gave one. With a charge of his natural speed he grabbed Shinso with his hands and with a push of his strength tossed the boy into the air, eventually he started to fall and when he was down far enough, Zen-Aku spin kicked Shinso in the gut and forced him out of the ring to win the match.

He stood at the edge of the ring right inside where Shinso was lying down holding his stomach, "let me take a wild guess and say that your quirk caused you trouble in school and was told that you were a villain in the making since you could control people," Zen-Aku asked as Shinso heaved. "So you think I was born and got my quirk at the age of four like everyone else, here's something for you to think about, I didn't use my quirk to beat you, I only used my own physical strength, you want to improve, train up your body and your mind will follow, it is the man that makes the hero."

"Oh yeah, that was actually kind of a boring first match, kids, but both of you fought bravely, let's show them some love, everyone," Present Mic called out as Shinso was barely able to turn over to get up now, not at all really, well he turned over, but he still wasn't able to get up, not at all. Zen-Aku walked out of the ring and to the audience stands to watch the next match, "enough standing around, now welcome to the ring our next players, he's got skills, but at the expense of some really creepy-looking elbows, from the hero course, it Hanta Sero," he introduced. Sero said something but was ignored, "versus, an early frontrunner in the competition who's way too strong for his own good yet only barely got by in the Calvary battle, someone who rightfully got into the hero course based on recommendations, it's Shoto Todoroki!"

The match was about to begin and everyone waited to see who would win, and when it began, Sero started everything by binding Todoroki with his tape and trying to launch him out of the ring in an instant, everyone was shocked by the sudden action and thought it would be a quick defeat. Yet just before the end Todoroki opened his eyes and with a glance froze the entire path up to Sero and covered him in ice, immobilizing him with the largest wave of ice he could possibly produce, covering not only him but half of Midnight as well, all in ice and all over the top. "Tell the truth Sero, can you move at all," the answer was quite obvious, and the deadpan was obvious as well, "Sero has been immobilized, Todoroki advances to the second round," that was a short match, and afterwards Todoroki went to his ice to free Sero from it after his win.

The next match was between Denki and Shiozaki, so after the ring was cleared, and a long wait to do that, "welcome back to the finals everyone, sorry for that long wait, the insane amount of ice from the second match has finally been cleared though so it's time to welcome new competitors. Even beautiful flowers have thorns, it's the assassin from class 1-B, Ibara Shiozaki from the hero course, versus the boy with the electric personality, another hero in the making, Denki Kaminari," the crowd cheered loudly, "keep those eyes peeled, I wanna see a super-flashy battle this time!"

"Excuse me," Shiozaki called up to the announcer's booth, "please pardon the interruption, I'm not sure why you called me an assassin, I've come to the festival in search of victory, not to take my opponent's life, that wouldn't be in line with the values of a hero at all, sir," Present Mic apologized. "Gentlemen, I didn't enter UA for wicked or selfish reasons, but to deliver salvation to others, it is my humble quest to spread true good across this world," is there an illusion power somewhere making a light shine bright down on her or was that just Zen-Aku's imagination. Present Mic apologized again, "I thank you for your kind understanding," she walked back to the center of the ring where they can begin the match, and when it was called to begin, Denki sent lightning her way, only for her to block the path and then use her hair vines to restrain him.

All in all it was over in one instant, though before he sent the lightning Denki said something about it being over in two seconds, "guess he was right, that match really was over in just two seconds," the voice of someone known as Monoma stated from behind a stone wall dividing classes. "I wonder if his real quirk is the ability to tell the future, hey, wasn't class 1-A supposed to be so much better than us," the boy started laughing at that before Zen-Aku got up and grabbed his face at the same time a girl with orange hair was going to do something about him as well.

The duke org pulled him over the wall and brought him right to his face, "we never thought we were better than you, you are more than likely talking about something Bakugo said to you, but if you don't be quiet, you'll face me outside after this is all over, and I fight to draw blood."

Zen-Aku tossed Monoma back over to class B's side and they heard a thud before Zen-Aku set down and Kendo stuck her head over the wall, "thanks for straightening that out and sorry 'bout him," she said apologetically before returning back to her own side to scold the antagonistic boy.

The next match to start, "let's keep pumpin' out these hits and move on, time for the fourth match, get ready to watch two new players duke it out, he's the kid with engines in his legs Tenya Iida from the hero course versus a fully-equipped gadget dynamo, the support course's Mei Hatsume!" That is where things got a bit strange, even for a several millennia duke org, Mei provided Iida with support gear for him to use, Midnight accepted the breach of rules due to Iida's speech, and yet, when the match began, Iida began running but seemed faster than what he usually was. It was at this time that something seemed off, Mei looked to be wearing a microphone and speakers, it was briefly wondered why before it was revealed that she was treating this as a commercial, showing off all of her 'babies' to the support companies watching the match. It ended when Mei was finally done showing off all the equipment that her and Iida were wearing, it all took ten minutes before she finally just stepped out of the ring after she was done, leaving Iida embarrassed and chopping the air in an over exaggerated way.

The next match was soon to start, "we're gonna charge right along to the fifth match, let's hope that gaudy belt serves some kinda purpose, it's Yuga Aoyama from the hero course versus, is there some kinda purpose to those things sticking out of her head, same class, Mina Ashido!" To start the match, Aoyama continually shot his later at Mina, who dodged all of his attacks by using her own slime until she was able to maneuver her way close enough to melt his special belt and drop his trousers before she made him faint by hitting him with an uppercut. That match was kind of a letdown to be honest, it wasn't particularly exciting and offered nothing really, just a reinforcement of what was already known, so after Aoyama found his pants and was taken out of the ring it was time for the sixth match, and this one was quite interesting. "Now, let's not let this hot streak cool, time to move on to the sixth match, the little frog that leap quite the distance, from the hero course, Tsuyu Asui versus the great creator, she was admitted because of recommendations, and I think we can all see why, also from class 1-A, Momo Yaoyorozu!"

Momo looked nervous and Tsu looked determined, after a moment of waiting, the match started with Tsu running straight ahead and kicking at Momo faster than she could make a creation for offence, instead she was forced to create a quick shield to block it, but Tsu had a strong kick. So she was forced back and didn't have the time to counter the second charge, this time instead of kicking, it was a jumping duel kick before adding a roundhouse kick to the end of the strikes, Momo was almost out of the ring by this point from the onslaught, so only one push left. Momo made a boa staff so she could counterattack, or at least she tried to, but Tsu whipped her tongue out and smacked her while charging, forcing the creator to break concentration, before a flying kick to her stomach forced her out of the ring for her to win the match.

"Yaoyorozu is out of the ring, winner of the match is Tsuyu Asui," Midnight announced and the audience cheered as they always did for the winner, Momo looked devastated at being taken out so quickly, she barely had any time to attack and now she was out just like that, she lost. The next fight was between Eijiro and the replacement for Ojiro, Tetsutestu, both quirks were based on hardening the users bodies, so this was going to drag on for a while so instead of watch, Zen-Aku stood from his seat along with Uraraka who began to go wait for her turn to fight.

They walked to the waiting room 2 where they waiting for the next match, they set opposite of each other, "this is where I repay you for scaring you so badly during the battle training, I'll begin with telling you the best way to defeat Bakugo with your disadvantageous quirk against his." She nodded at the words and let him continue on, "despite what many might think, Bakugo acts with thought in his head along with primal fury, he has watched all the class and their quirks, he plays it off as if he doesn't but I know for a fact that he does, yours is a noticeable one. You can effect the gravity of an object to make it float as if it is in zero gravity, hence your quirk's name, but you need to touch it to effect it, he'll try to blow you away before that happens, but if you can stay low and touch the ground, you can let him do the work for you with his explosions."

"I get it now, if I let him blow up most of the ring after I've touched it, and keep him focused on me staying low to the ground, he won't be able to dodge that and I could win with either a knockout or stun him long enough to get him out," Uraraka said in amazement at his idea.

"Yes, but as I said, he has brains to match his power, so don't let him see your hands," Zen-Aku's statement got a look of confusion, "I did say that he has watched everyone's quirks, so when you have built enough debris up, release it when he can't see your hands so he can't tell what is coming."

She nodded as they discussed a few more things before he got up to leave when her match was called, "the eighth and final battle in the first round of matches, he was kind of a hot shot in middle school, and just look at that determined face, from hero course, Katsuki Bakugo." Present Mic's announcement was met with the cheers of the audience, "versus the one I'm personally rooting for, also from class 1-A, Ochaco Uraraka," the crowd cheered again for the underdog of the match, they were ready for this, "let the eighth match… begin!"

In truth, Zen-Aku knew there were no way that she could win this, but he could see that she's going to try no matter what he told her or the plans that they made were, but at least she has a fighting chance, so when the bell sounded and she charged for him, Bakugo swiped an explosion for her. In the smoke from the explosion she ditched her jacket to throw him off guard for a moment and came in from behind, but he attacked again, afterwards she kept charging and charging creating more debris, that debris was still in the air using her quirk. Only a few in the crowd seemed to see what was happening, and after another large explosion, she hid in the smoke and released her grip on the debris, Bakugo didn't have the time to notice because she kept up the assault while he was focused on her so he didn't see the first rock. It hit him over the head and forced him to look up, only for a larger boulder to slam down into his shoulder, he yelled out in pain and swiped away at the third rock, but didn't see the rock directly behind it until it struck him in the face and forced him to close his eyes from the dust that got in it. That is when Uraraka was able to land a touch on him directly and ran while activating her quirk and let him raise up as he was hit continually by large rock after large rock until it was over, by the end he was underneath the rubble, then came the rumbling and then the large explosion. It blew most of the rock away, but it didn't reach her, and since it was no longer holding him down, he started to float up, that is when she came in and shoulder tackled him out of the ring for the win, at least that was what she intended, but when she landed the hit on him, she was weak. Weakened from the constant barrages of explosions, so he was able to use that and slammed her to the ground with an explosion powered backhand to the face, she couldn't stand anymore, she just couldn't find the strength, she lost, but she put up one hell of a fight for her trouble.

Midnight came in to give the official announcement, "Uraraka is KO'd, Bakugo advances to the next round," she announced and let the crowd cheer as med bots came in and put the girl on the stretcher, then took her to Recovery Girl to get healed while everyone else got ready for what's next.

"And that's it for the first round, let's try to forget that depressing outcome because with it the first round is complete, we're taking a quick break and then we're back with more matches," the second round, it was Zen-Aku vs Todoroki, Shiozaki vs Iida, Mina vs Tsu, Eijiro vs Bakugo.

Zen-Aku stood and went to the waiting room to wait for his match against Todoroki, it would be quite interesting to fight him, sadly he'd have to play the same thing he was before, the villain, he knew it, but he also knew that it was needed in the long run, "what are you doing here nerd?"

Aw, that voice, none other than Bakugo coming up the stairs her was passing by, "at least you stopped calling me Deku," Zen-Aku muttered to himself before raising his voice to normal levels, "I'm walking to the waiting room to wait for my match against Todoroki, that fine with you Bakugo." The duke org walked away after seeing him flinch at the unrecognizable name coming from who he knew as Deku, things were changing now and the sooner that the boy understood that the better off he'll be in life, he'd just beat it in him again if the boy ever forgot though.

He was going to go into the waiting room, but heard Uraraka in there crying a bit if the sniffles were anything to go by, so he kept walking, it was easy to see where that would be heading to, so he decided to go play his dagger flute somewhere to help clear his head a bit before his match. That was his first mistake, because on the way, a tall man with flames covering his shoulders, chest, feet, and made a mask and facial hair came around the corner and saw him, "ah, I was looking for you," he pointed at the duke org, "I watched your fight against the brainwashing guy. Your power is pretty impressive, have such physical strength without the use of a quirk, it's my Shoto's duty to surpass All Might as the number one hero, and his match with you will be a good testing ground for how much training he has left, so hit him hard, don't hold back at all."

Zen-Aku began walking around him while saying, "perhaps if you were worthy of the title of hero I'd listen to what you say," he heard a growl from behind him coming from the number two hero, "become a better father and human being and maybe later you can tell me such a thing."

"I can feel the anticipation in the stadium, and that's because the second round's first match is gonna be epic, it's the guy who won his last fight by a landslide and literally left half the audience frozen, the hero course's Shoto Todoroki," Present Mic announced as Todoroki approached the ring. "And this kid beat his opponent without even using his quirk and only used his physical strength, also from the hero course, Izuku Midoriya," Zen-Aku approached the ring as well, both of them had determined looks in their eyes, but it was clear who was going to win to only one in the audience, Pony. "Both of the heroes-in-training have been frontrunners in the sports festival, but which one of these rivals will advance to the next round," Zen-Aku got into his stance with his crescent blade out, "prepare for Midoriya versus Todoroki," Todoroki's stance was just leaning forward, "begin!"

Todoroki opened with an ice barrage Zen-Aku's counter was to use a crescent wave to carve a way through the ice, destroying it and making it useless as he shadow phased passed it to fight the boy up close, he relies to heavily on his quirk, not enough on his own fighting ability. He came in from Todoroki's left side and forced him to turn that way to attack using his ice, this time creating a large wave of ice to end it like he did with Sero, with a shadow phase again he was on top of the ice and running for the boy with his sword ready to fight. A crescent wave was shot out and forced Todoroki to leap out of the way as it came crashing down while the duke org used the smoke kicked up form the attack to his advantage and got past the boy's defenses and slammed his knee into his gut before crouching low and swinging his blade upward. With a swing blood sprung from where Todoroki was struck with the blade, and another swing had another cut on his stomach right below where he diaphragm would be, Todoroki tried to focus and used ice again, but this time Zen-Aku shadow phased behind him and let the boy notice. The boy swung to the right out of reflex and walked right into his trap, he grabbed the boy's right arm with the arm that held his blade and pushed out with his left hand, effectively braking the boy's arm in the process, before taking his left foot and slamming it through the boy's right leg.

Todoroki fell off balance from this and fell to the floor on his stomach, "I broke your right leg and right arm, cut your chest and stomach," Zen-Aku stated as he walked to stand in front of the boy and with just his left fist, planted it into his face and forced Todoroki into the air from the force. This wasn't the end however, as the next move was agonizing to watch, let alone feel, the duke org went directly under him and set his blade directly over his stomach while he was in the air and brought it down with a twist, this caused the boy to spin himself while falling and with a slash. The force of his landing was enough to create a sickening thud while rolling away and finally stopping just before the center of the ring on his back, where he began gasping for air, "do you think heroes get to choose which of their powers they use in life or death situation, no they don't." The duke org knelt down and grabbed the boy by his throat and raised him up like it was nothing until he was right in front of him, "I'm going to face you with all your power, but instead of appealing to any emotion you may have that has put a block on your power or whatnot. I'm going to appeal to one thing everyone has, your own survival instinct," the statement was said coldly with a deep growl, but the judge heard it and knew what he was planning, so she didn't move to stop the match, she instead let this happen since it'd help in the long run.

Todoroki fought to raise his right hand, but couldn't, and his left hand, he wouldn't move it for fear of using his father's power, he will not use it to win, he will not use it at all, so instead he focused his quirk and froze the hand grabbing his neck using his right side neck instead. Zen-Aku wouldn't let go though, he kept up the pressure and made sure to send a burst of energy to break the hold of ice creeping up his arm, he sent his blade away and punch Todoroki in the face with his right hand, then backhanded him before striking at his stomach with a huge punch. To finish off this round he used the hand around Todoroki's neck and gave a one handed choke slam that implanted the boy into the ground, he had to cough up some blood to make sure it didn't choke him while still stuck in the ground looking up at the duke org with one feeling, fear.

"I think it's time I end this pathetic attempt at playing hero when you can't even get past your past, just because you have a quirk inherited from a parent doesn't mean much, just means you get to rewrite his legacy using that same power, but too late to realize that now," Zen-Aku commented.

That seemed to get a light to shine in Todoroki's eyes, just as Zen-Aku brought out his crescent blade again and began to bring it down, a fire pillar erupted from the floor of the arena and the duke org was forced to jump back to avoid being burned from the show that was going on. Todoroki rose from the crater that he was in covered with both ice and fire at once, his right limbs were all encased in ice as a make-shift splint that let him fight even though both his right limbs were broken, but what was surprising was the fact that he rose while grinning at the duke org now.

"YES, SHOTOU," Endeavor yelled from the stands, "have you finally accepted your purpose, that's it, very good, this is the dawn of a new era for us, with my blood in your veins, you'll surpass me you will live up to the reason I created you," he… encourages the boy while walking down steps.

"Will you shut up, this has nothing to do with you, failure's aren't welcome here," Zen-Aku commented openly, shocking all present, "his path is his own to follow, not for you to decide," he brought up his crescent blade in a ready position for a fight, "this is between him and me."

"You realize that this situation is hopeless for you now, right," Todoroki stated bluntly as the fire raged onwards and the ice spread to the ground, "don't blame me for what happens next," that is when he sent the largest wave of ice he's ever sent outwards for a plan that he had in mind.

Zen-Aku ran using all of his power, including One For All, and jumped over the large wave of ice, then Todoroki heated the air creating a large pressurized vacuum that was sent in a large exploding blast aimed for the duke org at the same time said duke org pulled out his crescent blade. Powering it up with One For All and his own org energy, it charged up as the blade seemed to glow brighter than it ever had before, and instead of a crescent wave shooting out, out came a complete full moon that engulfed the high powered exploding flames and had the arena covered in smoke. The resulting debris caused so much dust and high pressured winds that everyone had to shield their eyes, everyone outside stood gawking at the explosion they just witnessed, the entire floor, not just the stage, was covered in smoke and it took a while for Midnight to be found for her judgement.

"What happened just now," Present Mic could be heard questioning over the speakers and if you looked in the announcers box you could only see his legs, "what the heck is up with your students," his legs were actually shaking, it seemed the high pressure shot him back and onto the floor.

"The air around the ring had been thoroughly cooled down, and then rapidly expanded when heated up, it's what caused the explosion, I wonder how hot that fire actually got," Aizawa wondered out loud as they all tried to scan the ring for any sign of what was going on.

Midnight got up slowly, the amount of power they showed had knocked her back quite a bit, she looked around and barely made out an outline of someone leaned up against the wall of the arena, before slumping down, she went over to check and see who it was though she had a feeling. As the steam and smoke began to clear, it was clear who won, "there," everyone's attention was drawn to the voice, "Todoroki is…," they all waited on bated breath to hear who was out of the ring, everyone else could see someone in the ring though, "out of bounds, Midoriya wins."

Todoroki wasn't in that bad of shape, but there were burns on his left side and both his right limbs were broken, and a large circular bruise was forming on his chest and upper stomach, not to mention all of the other cuts and scrapes that the blade and shards of debris that shot into him. Zen-Aku though was in a much better shape, though not without cost, it seems that he unlocked a new power form combining One For All at forty percent with his crescent wave, the blowback from the attack without tests resulted in his right arm being broken and hanging limply at his side. Regardless of that, it was kind of his fault the boy wound up like that so he calmly walked out of the ring and went to the boy, using his left hand to pick him up by the back of his collar he calmly walked to where the medical bots were rolling their way and instead went to them where they stopped. He gently laid Todoroki on the stretcher and instead of letting the bots take him, he grabbed the stretcher himself and hoisted it on his left shoulder and carried the boy like that to the medical office where he was sure Recovery Girl was waiting for him and the boy to come to.

Zen-Aku entered the nurse's office to see a very irate Recovery Girl, "well, it seems that you finally lost control over One For All, how did you do it," she asked as the duke org put the stretcher on a bed so that she could start working on him after healing him up to fight.

"I combined One For All with one of my attacks, it upgraded the attack to not a crescent but a full moon, last time I used something similar to it was during the entrance exam, though instead of the energy itself, it was the blade back then," he stated bluntly as he set on a spare chair she had.

"Well, since this is the first time and you have been able to control up to this point I won't say anything too bad, but don't make it a habit," Recovery Girl stated as she puckered her lips and kissed his furry right arm, the duke org was sure that it tasted disgusting like hair or something.

"Thank you," he stated as he stood up to leave and let Recovery Girl work on her new patient, by the time he got back to the stands the next match had already started, Shiozaki sent a wave of vines after Iida, but she was too slow to counter his Recipro burst to get behind and push her out.

"Shiozaki is out, Iida wins the match," Midnight announced when the girl finally realized what had happened, she looked sad but knew that she fought against her opponent as best she could so she then held her head high and left with grace and dignity, knowing that she did her best. Then came Tsu's match against Mina, that one didn't last long either, to put it bluntly, Tsu used the same attack style that she used on Momo, and since Mina isn't really the sharpest tool in the shed, she was caught in the trap without a chance to show off her acid at all really. "Ashido is out of bounds," Midnight advanced again for everyone, "Asui will advance," so her next match will be against whoever won against Bakugo and Eijiro, which will more than likely be Bakugo, seeing as how Eijiro has used his hardening too much over the last match he had so it will break. Eijiro stood strong against Bakugo, especially considering that his hardening would only be weaker against the explosions with how far he's pushed his quirk up to this point, but soon his quirk gave out and Bakugo began winning thanks to him using is explosions to win. It did take some time, but Eijiro still held himself strong even as Bakugo used explosions on him, but eventually, "Kirishima has been knocked out, Bakugo is the winner," Midnight announced and the crowd cheered because now was time for the semi-finals of the tournament.

"With that vicious carpet bombing, Bakugo advances to the third round, ladies and gentlemen, our final four," Present Mic announced as pictures of the final four appeared on screen, Zen-Aku, Iida, Tsu, and finally Bakugo, Zen-Aku stood up from his seat and walked down to the arena. When he got down there Present Mic spoke, "the first match of the semifinals, both have shown the drive to make it here today, from the hero course, Tenya Iida versus… his classmate, Izuku Midoriya," Zen-Aku brought out his crescent blade and put it into attack mode, "start!"

Tenya began running to Zen-Aku's right as he sent a crescent wave for him, moving his blade in a continued infinity pattern he was able to continually send wave after wave for the speedster, forcing him to run around the ring faster and tiring himself out faster as well for his trouble. Though whenever Iida had enough of that he finally made his move for a recipro burst and went straight for the duke org's head, but he was able to duck under it by bending backwards and countered by sending lightning his way with his left hand that struck at his engines to overheat it a bit. Iida still had the other leg though and as such used that to send a heavy kick aimed for the back of the duke org's head, sending him to the ground, that is where Iida grabbed him and began running as fast as he could to pull Zen-Aku out of the ring with his burst still active, it didn't work. Just as Iida reached the edge to throw him off, Zen-Aku spun on his heal while grabbing onto the boy and threw him with his own spin and judo flipped him out of the ring, sped up thanks to his own engine legs still in his recipro burst, "Iida is out of the ring, Midoriya advances!"

Iida was on the ground hanging his head in shame at losing, "never forget something Iida," Zen-Aku began and the boy looked up to him, "speed and strength are strong attributes to have, but when I picked my team I didn't do so with those in mind, I used their skill instead of power." The duke org walked away after that and instead of going back to the stands walked to the waiting room, nobody was in there so to build up strength he took out a hidden bag that he placed in a locker brought it out, it was pollution, he saved some from the beach he cleaned and ate it. This helped him to recover his strength, despite having a human body underneath this form, it was a corpse, and as such can't metabolize regular food like Merrick could before and his previous body that he had inhabited was a normal human as well, where he learned what he's done now.

"And now, Bakugo versus Asui," Present Mic announced throughout the arena, yes, that was the match that was next, Asui will lose no matter what she did, her attacks were all based on physical touch, and a trick like with Uraraka pulled off was not viable with the use of her quirk at all. Without thinking he was on his way to watch the match from the hallway of where Tsu came in from, it was just brutal, no matter how much she hopped away or tried to fight with punches and kicks, Bakugo was far better and more aggressive, "Bakugo's vicious rushes are unstoppable!"

In the end Bakugo destroyed her and forced her into unconsciousness, "Asui is unconscious, Bakugo advances," Midnight announced and the med bot came in to take the unconscious girl to the infirmary where she can be healed, it wasn't a good matchup to begin with, so of course he won.

"That means our final fight will be between Midoriya and Bakugo," Present Mic announced as Tsu passed by him on the med bot stretcher, and was it him or were the med bots glaring at him, probably from him stealing the stretcher, oh well, not like they could do anything to him. Instead of waiting in the waiting room he decided to wait right there in peace until eventually it was time for him to go on out, "welcome to the final battle of the UA High School Sports Festival, in just a moment here, we'll see which first years come out on top," he announced again. Zen-Aku walked out to stand on his side of the ring to start, Bakugo went to his, "yes, it all comes down to this folks, from the hero course, Izuku Midoriya," the duke org brought out his crescent blade, "versus his classmate, Katsuki Bakugo," Bakugo was hunched over like an animal, "now begin!"

Bakugo began by creating explosions behind him to speed up his charge, how predictable, Zen-Aku charged the boy and shot lightning out of his hand after bringing it up to his face for but a moment, this forced the boy to shoot an explosion to the left to dodge the attack with minimal power. Which is exactly what the duke org wanted him to do, and with a swing upward of his left arm holding the blade he sent a crescent wave out and let it hit the right shoulder of Bakugo, making him crash to the ground but rolled in enough time to get up and keep charging with a sprint. It was speed up thanks to his explosions and so reached the duke org faster than normal, but it was as expected so when he reached out to grab and blow him up point blank, Zen-Aku grabbed Bakugo's right wrist with his left hand and ducked under it to deliver a right elbow to the boy's ribs.

"Your attacks are too linear, and you rush into what you shouldn't be rushing into, especially since you have no long range attacks," Zen-Aku stated as he threw Bakugo using his left arm to the other side of the ring, "not an attack you can use without some damage to yourself being done." The duke org swung his crescent blade for the boy, however he saw it in time and blasted himself upwards to avoid the hit, crescent wave after crescent wave was shot for the younger one and each was dodged with an explosion, each time getting closer and closer to where Zen-Aku was.

"Ha, I found your weakness," Bakugo yelled out as he began creating mini-blasts to get all around the arena in a circular formation all around him, "you can't fire that thing off while running," he was going all over the place at this point, trying to catch him off guard for when he finally attacked.

He made his move after some time and came in from the back after blasting himself overhead in a front roll to blast him to the ground then, "predictable," Zen-Aku commented as he shadow phased around the impact point while shooting out his crescent wave for the boy who was in shock. Each wave impacted Bakugo with enough force of one of his average explosions, but it was not that which bothered him, it was the continued onslaught that came in such a quick succession that it seemed like there were multiple forms shooting it at once, he never got another shot in. Not until it was over and saw that he was covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe, "keep this in mind," the duke org's voice cut through the air like a knife, "what you show people is important, but what you can do is far more important," he began walking to Bakugo who froze.

This was just like the battle simulation, he was winning, the bastard Deku was winning against him, he became stronger than him, no, after so many long hours of working, after fighting for so long to become the best, he was not going to let this stand, "I'll show you something," Bakugo yelled. He jumped high in the air using his explosions before heading straight for him like a missile, using explosions again to give himself a large spin, each spin getting faster and faster with each turn, and before long he was upon the duke org with a glowing hand, "Howitzer Impact."

The result was an explosion that covered his half of the entire stadium and some might have gotten to the fans depending on if Cementoss was there to minimize the damage done, but it was still quite a large explosion that resulted in damage to the stadium, but what of the duke org. Well at the last second he dodged the main explosion but was caught up in the much smaller ones, the result was only a few burn marks on his uniform again, but the smoke that was kicked up provided the perfect cover for him to sneak around behind Bakugo for an attack. The attack itself was a combination of lightning from his left hand and a crescent wave from the crescent blade in his right, it struck his back with enough force to send him out of the ring and into the rubble caused by the explosion in the first place, causing him to lay there on his stomach.

When the dust cleared they saw Bakugo on his stomach out of the ring and Zen-Aku in the ring, "Bakugo is out of bounds, that means… Midoriya is the winner," the crowd roared with cheers at Midnight's announcement and everyone from his class gaped at his victory over Bakugo.

"And with that, the final match is officially over, the first-year champion of the UA Sports Festival is… Izuku Midoriya from class 1-A," Present Mic announced and the crowd began to cheer as the two competitors began to either walk away or be carried to Recovery Girl to begin the healing.

Now they were standing under the arena on platforms meant to ascend into the arena, "the first year students have completed all the evens for the UA sports festival, now it's time to relax and enjoy the award ceremony," after the introduction the platform raised and they all saw the platform.

Especially how Bakugo was trying to kill Zen-Aku but was bound up and restrained from moving with a muzzle on to prevent him from spitting out any profanities, and he had a lot going by the intense noises he was making, all of which directed towards the duke org, which added to the fire. Everyone was surprised that Bakugo had to be tied up, more so because of how he was able to spit out the profanities to himself while looking up to him, he was on the highest of the platforms in the middle since he got first place, second place was on his right just below being Bakugo. Who was still yelling out profanities at him and trying to challenge him to another fight, or that is what it sounded like at least, and last was third place to Zen-Aku's left, that was where Tsu was, and yet there was someone missing, Iida was in third place as well, wasn't he, so where was he.

"Tenya Iida actually shares the third-place award with Asui, but unfortunately, he had to leave for family reasons, gotta love those familial bonds," Midnight announced and tried to act cute, giving a wink and a finger to her mouth, but at least they were informed as to why Iida wasn't here. "Now, let's break out the hardware, of course there is only one person worthy of distributing he awards," Midnight said as a platform on the roof was risen to show All Might, "All Might, the number one hero," she said at the same time the hero said, "citizens, I am here." They talked at the same time and ruined his own introduction, not that Hiei cared, all the grand showboating wasn't worth anything to him, Midnight came out with four medals, "well since you're here All Might, why don't you start the presentation?"

He did by going to Asui first and giving him his medal, "young Asui, congratulations," they had a few words that Zen-Aku tuned out to give some privacy and ended with All Might saying, "regardless of the loss, you still did very good," he then gave her a hug and patted her on the back.

Next came Bakugo for the second place medal, though, why he felt the need to remove the muzzle and let the boy spit out profanities towards his successor was lost on him, "YOU MOTHERF***ING BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU YA LITTLE SH*T, DAMN F***ING PIECE OF SH*T, I'LL KILL YOHMPH."

That was as far as he got before the muzzle was put back on his mouth and All Might was putting the medal on the boy, "now young Bakugo, you need to let go of that anger and calm down, you tried your best and that's all that matters, right," it didn't seem to calm him down at all. So instead of dealing with the wild animal, the hero chose to move on to the first place winner, "young Midoriya, you won the sports festival, everyone will be gunning for you now," Zen-Aku nodded to the statement, "then be prepared for it later on," he turned to the crowd. "Here they are, the winners of this year's sports festival, but listen closely, any of you first years could have ended up standing on these podiums, think about what you've done today, you've challenged each other, learned, and climbed even closer to your goals of being pros. I think the next generation of heroes is proving to be our most promising one yet," he raised his overly large left index finger in the air, "so I have one more thing to say, I want to hear everyone loud with me, you know what it is, thanks, everyone for your hard work!" Apparently they anticipated the wrong thing and the audience all said one thing that sounded like 'plus ultra' at the same time All Might said that last line, so they all booed, "yes, well I guess, but everyone did such a good job," Zen-Aku would have hung his head if he had better control of himself.

Later on in the classroom Aizawa talked to them all, "nice work, you have the next two days of school off to recuperate, I'm sure the pros who watched the festival will wanna recruit some of you, we'll look over the drafts forms and update you when you return, get some rest. You still have a lot of training," everyone nodded and began filing out obediently to prepare for the week of relaxation and to more than likely privately train while they had been ordered to recuperate, but that was just another aspect of this hero school, something Zen-Aku actually liked.


	6. Hero Internships

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 6

Hero Internships

Zen-Aku was calmly walking in the rain under an umbrella, dressed in the standard UA uniform, behind him he could hear splashing from running, "good morning Midoriya," Iida called coming from his right, "why on earth are you walking so slowly, students should arrive ten minutes early." The duke org just shook his head at the comment, he is too eager to get to class and too eager for revenge, he's seen that look many times in the mirror long ago, he's too focused on it and it will destroy him if he isn't careful about what he does with that need, he will become what he hates.

"It's so weird that people recognize us from tv, everyone wanted to talk to me on my way here," were the first words he heard from Mina as he stepped through the door, Zen-Aku barely heard Eijiro say that it happened to him as well, but for now he shouldn't really focus on them too much.

"People on the street were staring at me, it was pretty embarrassing," Toru stated, even though she was invisible so nobody was paying much attention to her anyways really, it was harsh but the reality of things, though he could get the general idea of what she looked like thanks to her scent.

"You wouldn't believe what a bunch of elementary school brats yelled at me," Sero commented and Tsu muttered 'nice try', referring to what was chanted after his crushing defeat at the hands of Todoroki back at the sports festival, and it was actually entertaining seeing his reaction.

"All it took was one sports festival and suddenly we're like celebrities, this school really is amazing," Denki said as he was talking to Mineta as Zen-Aku passed by and sat in his seat in front of the purple haired boy, wondering what they would be doing today of all days.

It was around that time when Aizawa came into the room, just in time to see everyone else sitting down, "morning," and they greeted him back, "we have a big class today on hero informatics… you need code names, time to pick your hero identities," he informed the class. The whole class cheered and made him raise his hair for intimidation and make them sit down, "this is related to the hero draft picks I mentioned last time we were in class together, normally students don't have to worry about the draft yet, not until their second or third year actually. Your class is different though, in fact, by extending offers to first years like you, pros are essentially investing in your potential, any interest in you can be rescinded if their interest in you dies down before graduation though, so you'll still have to prove yourselves even after recruitment. Now, here are the totals for those of you who got offers," he pressed a button and the screen shown the statistics of who got offers and who didn't, highest was Todoroki with four thousand one hundred and twenty-three, then Bakugo at three thousand five hundred fifty-six.

Zen-Aku was in third place with one thousand six hundred ninety-seven offers, then came Tokoyami with three hundred sixty, Iida with three hundred and one, Kaminari with two hundred seventy two, Yaoyorozu with one hundred eight, Kirishima sixty-seven, Uraraka twenty, and Sero fourteen. Zen-Aku honestly didn't expect himself to get that much, thought his looks were a bit too scary to be considered hero material to some pros, but it was good that they looked past the fur and wolf monster-like features to see what was on his inside, or what he presented himself to be at least.

"In past years it's been more spread out, but there's a pretty big gap this time," the other students were surprised at this then, "despite results, you'll all be interning with pros, even those of you that didn't get any offers, you may have already got to experience combat with real villains. However it would still be helpful to see pros at work, up close and personal, in the field, firsthand, these hero names will more than likely be temporary, but take them seriously or," that was far as he got before the door was slammed open and let the person that interrupted a lesson in.

"You'll have hell to pay," in walked the female hero Midnight in her standard dominatrix outfit, "what you pick today could be your code name for life, better be careful or you'll be stuck with something utterly indecent," she walked in the classroom as if she was seducing them.

"Yeah, she's got a good point, Midnight is going to have final approval over your names, it's not my forte," Aizawa stated as he grabbed a sleeping bag from under his podium, "the name you give yourself is important, it reinforces your image and shows the kind of hero you want to be. Your code name tells people exactly what you represent, take All Might for example," Aizawa stated before walking off and letting the boards be passed back while he took a nap instead of watching the class and the, more than likely, ridiculous names some of them will think up.

"Now students, who among you is ready to share," Midnight asked after some time, the way it went down was fine, Aoyama was eventually named 'I can't stop twinkling', Mina was eventually 'Pinky', Tsu was 'Rainy Season Hero: Froppy', Eijiro was 'Sturdy Hero: Red Riot'. Jirou was 'Hearing Hero: Earphone Jack, Shoji was 'Tentacle Hero: Tentacole', Sero was 'Taping Hero: Cellophane', Ojiro was 'Martial Arts Hero: Tailman, Sato was 'Sweets Hero: Sugarman', Denki was 'Stun Gun Hero: Chargebolt', Toru was 'Stealth Hero: Invisible Girl'. Momo was 'Everything Hero: Creati', Todoroki was 'Shoto', Tokoyami was 'Jet-Black Hero: Tsukuyomi', Mineta was 'Fresh-Picked Hero: Grape Juice', Koda was 'Petting Hero: Anima', Uraraka was 'Uravity', Iida was 'Tenya', Bakugo decided to go with the name Zen-Aku called him, 'Explosion'.

Last to go was Zen-Aku himself, so he walked up and placed his board on the podium like all the rest, "Zen-Aku," he stated openly, everyone was a bit confused by it but Midnight nodded her head in approval at his choice in name, it meant both good and evil respectively.

After everything was done and the idiots were taken care of, "now that everyone's decided on their hero names, we can talk about your incoming internships, they last for one week, as for who you'll be working with, those on the board will choose from among your offers. Everyone else will have a different list, there are a lot to think about, there are about forty agencies from around the country that have agreed to take on interns from your class, each agency has a different specialty that it's heroes focus on, keep that in mind," Aizawa stated holding up a paper.

"Imagine you're a hero like Thirteen, you'd want to choose a place that focuses on rescuing people, not fighting villains, understand," Midnight put in simpler terms because it just made more sense to some of the other students who don't think much, they just act and don't think.

"Think carefully before you decide, turn in your choices before the weekend, so you should start now, you're dismissed," Aizawa stated as he left the room carrying his sleeping bag following after Midnight on her way out, leaving everyone to think about where they wanted to intern at.

After school Zen-Aku was about to walk out of the classroom when All-Might appeared before him, laughing and in a strange position bent at the waist, "I am here in a bizarre position," it very odd, especially sense his speed trail was just now catching up to him, "hi, come with me a sec." The duke org nodded and followed the hero to a secluded spot where they can't be seen, "I'll get straight to the point, you've received a special off from a hero who'd like to take you on," the response that he got was a raised eyebrow, since he already had a list of various choices already. "The hero's name is Gran Torino, he taught at this school back in my day, but only for one year," All Might was sweating now, "in fact the man was my homeroom teacher, he know about One For All as well, actually I suspect that's the reason he asked for you," so the old wanted to train the young. "Gran Torino was the sworn friend of my predecessor, he retired a long time ago, so I forget to count him among the people who know," he began shaking now, "is this because I wrote about you in the letter I sent him, or did he watch the festival and think that my teaching was inadequate?"

"First of all, you are a terrible teacher, number one hero doesn't mean good teacher, and if he was concerned about that mishap with Todoroki, he shouldn't worry because that was something else," Zen-Aku stated openly, but that didn't seem to help All Might because he continued to shake.

"If he went so far as to use his old hero name when making the offer… it's scary, too scary, dammit legs, stop shaking," it wasn't just his legs, it was all of him, and was it just him or was the backdrop of All Might with his back turned distorting, seriously, what in the actual hell. "Anyway, it is my duty to train you, but since you got the offer from him you should work with him this week if that's what your heart says, anyway, h-h-here's the-the-the-the address," okay, if All Might was stuttering like this, Zen-Aku was going to meet him just for the fun of that.

* * *

Bus station day of internship

"Everyone has their costumes, right," Aizawa asked as everyone stood in their uniforms with their bags and cases with their costumes in them, "remember you don't have permission to wear them out in public yet, and don't lose them or anything," he reminded them sounding board. "Make sure to mind your manners with the other heroes during your internships, now get to it," he ordered and watched as everyone left to get on a bus, some had to take the same bus but went to different places, so it wasn't as spread out as one might think.

Before Iida could leave too far, Zen-Aku caught his arm and made him turn to face the duke org, "I want you to seriously think about something, what you plan will lead to a decision you cannot come back from, you will get no help, no aid, and if you die than the decision becomes pointless."

Zen-Aku stood there and waited for a reaction from the boy, it was clear that he'd been caught, clear that he was going after this hero killer, so what would he say to the duke org now that he'd been caught, "I get what you're saying, but I have to do this, I have to," his voice sounded pleading.

The duke org sighed a sad sigh before looking the boy in the eyes again, "very well, but know this: in every situation there comes a point where the innocent will be caught up in vengeance, that is the point of no return," Zen-Aku walked away form him and let Iida make his choice.

The ride to Gran Torino's was calm and quiet, he got much mental image training done, being able to fight off all of his class single handedly, even now that Todoroki could use his flames, and Bakugo his beginning to think longer about how to use his explosions, but he still won. The most problem he faced though was when he fought both Todoroki and Bakugo at the same time with both of them working together, Todoroki and his flames with ice combination along with Bakugo and his well-timed explosions made things more difficult than they needed to be. It wasn't long before he was stopped before the place and got out calmly while walking up the steps with his hero costume case, he stopped momentarily to check and see if there was anything he needed to know beforehand in the case, it looked good though so he went on in with it.

Inside was a man on the ground covered in ketchup, he stayed there more than likely expecting him to exclaim something, but he just casually closed the door behind him as he stepped inside and went further in, putting his case on the floor against the far wall before opening it. He quickly put the costume on let himself get use to the feeling of having his normal attire on now, thankful that the support course didn't get the need to change anything in regards to design, though since his dark armor was a representation of his own soul, they wouldn't have been able to.

Instead of letting the old man know that his little skit doesn't work on him, he leaned against the wall and brought out his dagger flute and began to play, it didn't take long before the old man just shot up and turned to him, "why didn't you react, I could have been dead for all you knew?"

Zen-Aku sent away his dagger flute, "I didn't smell any blood, it was ketchup, and I also saw that you were breathing," he walked forward until he was standing in front of the old man, "I didn't come here to play around, I came to see why All Might was so scared of you, I don't see why."

Gran Torino regarded the duke org for a few moments before shooting to the left side facing the door before jumping to the right side wall, then to the floor and then to another wall before going straight for Zen-Aku before going up and then landing on the wall just above the door itself. Creating indents in the wall, "I guess it's time to show you why he's so scared of me than," the old man began to bounce around after that, going from one point to the next at blinding speeds, yet the duke org remained still, there was no point trying to following him with his eyes, too fast. "I'm losing patience, go ahead and try to hit me with One For All," Gran Torino said as he came up from behind to kick him, Zen-Aku just side stepped to the left to avoid the kick, he flew around again and eventually landed on the Microwave, "you have good reflexes for a newbie."

Gran Torino began flying around again after that, going from one point to the next, occasionally coming in to attack him from behind, only for the duke org to sidestep the attack and let the old man pass him by and carry on like before, while he was moving Zen-Aku didn't move until dodging. On the last attack he tried to come in from the left side, the attack was a kick that was just swiped away while grabbing the offender's left arm with his right hand and then using his left hand, the one used to swipe the kick away, to knock the old man back to slam against the door. "You are good, and your experience gives you a good sense of battle," Zen-Aku leaned against the couch with his arms crossed, "but your experience only works because you haven't faced someone like me, who realizes that experience only works up to a certain point, than it stops."

Gran Torino stood up and hunched over to be able to stand at all, but as he looked into the duke org's eyes, he saw what he was talking about, experience, what that boy has been seeing isn't coming from experience at all, he actually just has experience, but sees the world in the now. The old man just uses what he's learned and acts on that, but with that one, he has experience that he doesn't use and sees the world as is and only acts from what he learns in the moment, no guess work from what he's seen, "not that it stops, just that you've surpassed the need for it."

"Clever," Zen-Aku stated with an incline of his head, "I know how to control One For All, what you saw was a result of it combining with the energy from my attack, I'll work on that, but you should really order a new microwave, you broke the other one," he pointed out, the man panicked now.

* * *

Two days later

They had been going back and forth for some time, it was clear to Zen-Aku that this world was still messed up with the way heroes behaved and what they allowed, with that Gran Torino agreed, but publicly saying that Endeavor or other heroes were less than worthy was a bit much. At least it was a bit much to Gran Torino, the duke org didn't care who they were though, if they didn't have the morality to be a hero then they shouldn't be one, no matter the quirk or if they even had one, which led to another debate on quirkless people fighting a villain when needed. Gran Torino seemed to think that people without power are sometimes too dangerous to fight people with power, but Zen-Aku continued to retort that with the right brain power and time preparation, sometimes just improvisation, then you don't need to have power to beat an opponent.

Arguments, debates, little squabbles, and shouting matches over these subjects have gone on for two freaking days now, each time experience was brought up that provided a counter argument another counter argument suggested that was only that person's experience, it's different for everyone. When they weren't arguing over things such as those, Gran Torino was trying to surprise attack him, or trying to teach him about the different aspects of being a hero in today's society, it eventually got to a certain point where they needed a change of scenery, a big change of scenery.

"Hope you're ready, we're going out to fight some villains," Gran Torino declared as he stood on the top of his steps in front of his door, "if you only fight against me, you'll be in trouble when you come across someone who's the complete opposite, even though I don't think that will happen with you. The key to this internship is to let you get experience with different types of villains and situations, though from what I've heard you've already been in combat with some real villains and did quite well, but we aren't gonna go after anyone that big," he hailed a cab for them as he spoke.

It stopped in front of them so they could get in, "yet it wouldn't do us any good doing anything around here, the small population in this area means the crime rate is pretty low, so we wouldn't want to steal the wages of those that wish to be paid," Zen-Aku finished the comment as he got in.

Gran Torino heard the comment, "we're going to Shibuya, we'll have plenty of small fights to break up, so yes as a matter of fact we are going to let other heroes get paid their wages," Gran Torino said back while sticking out his tongue like a child, making Zen-Aku's eyebrows twitch.

"If we're going to Shibuya, that means we'll more than likely be going past Hosu city," Zen-Aku thought out loud to keep from strangling the younger than him old man, 'why do I have a bad feeling about what is about to happen tonight', he internally wondered as they set in silence now. Eventually they reached the bullet train and began riding it to where they were going, regardless of how fast they were going though, they weren't going to reach Shibuya until late tonight, "this train isn't going to reach Shibuya until late into the night, why did you pick only this evening?"

"I picked it because of that fact, there'll be more skirmishes then, so it'll be much more fun," Gran Torino replied and the duke org sighed from the seat closest to the window, it was around that time others noticed something outside, "what's the ruckus," he asked while looked back to them. That is when there was a crash into the train, it looked like a hero, he seemed to be beat up quite heavily as well, what he was fighting grabbed his face and peaked its head in, it was a strange variation of a Nomu, "I want you to stay back, you hear me," he ordered before acting. He jumped from one wall to the next to get past the crowd and kicked the beast with a high air pressured kick, getting Nomu to let go of the hero, before going to the opposite wall and then slamming into the creature and flying through the railings of the train tracks.

Zen-Aku ran and checked out of the hole and saw the fire in the distance, "like I'm going to listen to you," he growled out before jumping himself and landing on a rooftop, he shadow phased a few more times before he landed on a rooftop overlooking the fire, it was not just one, but two Nomu. They were completely different than the one that attacked the train, that one had long arms, but one of these two had wings in the air and a long neck, the other one had a large body and only a lower jaw, both brains were exposed but that was it, they were causing havoc beating heroes.

"Tenya, where are you Tenya," the voice of Manual called out, the duke org looked down and saw him helping the heroes fight the Nomu, one hero tore the fire hydrant apart for him to put out the fires, "why'd run off by yourself, where the hell are you, Tenya, dammit," he said as he got to the hydrant. He used the water from the hydrant to create a water cyclone to put out the fires, but it didn't help, the Nomu were too strong for the heroes to win, best they can do is hold them off until someone stronger than them comes in, but what can he do now, he knows where Iida had gone.

Zen-Aku thought for only a moment before he acted when one Nomu was about to grab the arm of one muscle based hero that was holding it off, using his crescent blade he chopped the offending arm off of it in a dark flash before appearing beside of Manual, "I know where Iida is."

The Nomu's howl of pain echoed throughout the makeshift battlefield while Manual turned to him, "you're from his class back at UA, aren't you," he asked and got a nod in return, "fine, thanks for the assist here, but you need to go and find him and evacuate with him, only evacuate, don't fight."

The command was clear, but he was only going to follow the order to find Iida, he only stopped here to begin with so that Manual would have one load off of him to help fight, with several heroes in the vicinity hearing their exchange they could act better without worrying too much. So he ran at his top speed without using his power in the open, he had to plan for the aftermath as well, if he was able to beat him without showing his power in the open then the backlash of such an event should also be minimized and he'll be recognized as a top contender when he leaves UA.

So he ran through the back alleys and between houses far away from the fire, where nobody was in the chaos, that is when he heard the words of the hero killer, "goodbye child, may your death bring about a better world," so that was his goal, that one statement told so much about him.

"SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT TO ABOUT ME, YOU'RE STILL JUST A CRIMINAL WHO HURT MY BROTHER," Iida screamed as the hero killer was about to bring his blade down upon the boy, but then they heard the sound of music, the carrying sounds of a flute being played, coming closer.

As it came closer they could see something in the shadows, moving closer to them until eventually they could see a giant wolf-like monster with one horn walk out of the shadows to stand before them, playing a flute until he felt he had everyone's attention, "what are you doing?"

"Midoriya," Iida said questioningly since he recognized that voice, "get away from here, this is my fight, it has nothing to do with you," he yelled out towards his classmate, he had his head towards the direction away from where he came from, so there was no way he could see his disappointed look.

"I told you once before Iida, that innocents will suffer as you walk down the path of vengeance," Zen-Aku stated as he casually walked to them, seeing the hero killer's eyes he felt no fear, knowing what kind of man this was, "what has he done to incur your wrath hero killer?"

The hero killer regarded him for a few moments before backing off of Iida to look at the duke org straight in the eye, "he's shown that he isn't fit to be a hero, challenging me for vengeance and using his power for selfish reasons instead of protecting those that can't," he pointed to Native.

Native was a pro hero dressed like a Native America, he was bleeding from his left side close to his underarm, and Iida was bleeding from his left arm, "I ask that you forgive Iida, he is young and as such has room to grow, did you know the path you were on when you were his age?"

The question gave the hero killer pause for a moment, Shigaraki had shown him a picture of the one that he claims hurt a weapon they had badly before All Might stepped in at the USJ, this wolf-like creature may look like a beast but acts civil, "call me Stain, and no, I didn't know my path."

"Then I ask that you forgive him, I advised him that this was a worthless and foolish plan, trying to fight you when he was thirsty for vengeance, it isn't right, and though I don't agree with your method I do agree with your message," the duke org stated as his eyes glowed amber in the light.

The look in his eyes told Stain that it was the truth, so Stain backed up a bit until he was only at Native's level, Zen-Aku walked forward until he was just behind Iida before stepping over the boy to stand in front of him, "should a UA student really be saying such things out in the open?"

"Most likely no, but I'm a bit different, I expected the attack at the USJ, not the attack itself but that it would happen the minute that All Might was announced to be teaching at UA, I couldn't voice this of course because if I brought my concerns up than the world would question All Might. For the current world to exist at the moment, All Might must be without question, must be a pillar that is unbreakable, that means not letting people know that a decision like teaching was the wrong move, his renown as a hero is what brought on that attack," the duke org stated bluntly.

Stain was stunned, this wolf-creature student agreed with him but doesn't agree with his methods, even going so far as to say what was obvious to anyone else with a brain, but he mentioned USJ for a reason, "just so you know, I'm not in league with the villain from then."

"I know," Zen-Aku stated and Stain could see why, he was a loner like him and loners know one another, "to be honest, according to the law I'm not supposed to fight you, however the law also states that I can fight you if the right conditions are met, you and me, neither using our powers."

Stain weighed his options, he knew for a fact it wasn't about the fight, this wolf would never stoop so low as to actually fight for the sake of fighting, no, what he'd do is by time until the pros show up, they would eventually be done with that fire and chaos and then search for anything they missed. If he tried to kill Native now, he'd be blindsided by this 'Midoriya' that the Ingenium brother had referred to him as, if he went after Ingenium now he'd have to get past this 'Midoriya', and if he took on this wolf creature then he'd waste time and risk capture, "what is your name?"

"Zen-Aku," the duke org answered and knew what Stain was doing, he was buying a little time to get information while he made his decision, it was fine with him, but, "don't worry, the heroes won't be here for quite a while, I saw the fight they were having and know the length it will have."

Stain grinned like a madman at that, this guy is proving to be more interesting with each word he spoke, he already went and checked out the larger mess before coming out here to make sure smaller things were taken into account, "if we do this you may be the next one to be culled."

Stain brought his sword up and licked at the blade, Zen-Aku used his power once and that was to bring out his crescent blade and dagger flute, blade in right and dagger in left, "I see no reason as to why that should matter, if I have to die to buy time for others to live, then so be it."

Stain rushed forward and Zen-Aku rushed to meet him, the hero killer swung his blade from right to left and the duke org swung his blade down to meet it, the resounding clash made a resounding vibration of metal hitting metal, if the others could move they'd cover their ears from it. The hero killer brought out one of his knives using his left hand to strike at him with his sword still busy against the crescent blade, but the duke org brought out his dagger flute and blocked the stab that was aimed for his ribs under where the blades met with the flat of his dagger. They stayed there locked in place before falling back and rushing forward again, this time Zen-Aku swung horizontally while Stain met his attack with un upward swing, the clang this time was from the two weapons scraping against each other, one sword stayed in the air, the other to the side. The hero killer brought his sword down while the duke org brought his across where they both collided again and their swords scraped against each other, the hero killer tried to use his knife, but it was blocked when the duke org used his knife as well to deflect the thrust to the right.

Zen-Aku brought his blade up from below waist level for a strike that Stain stepped to the left to dodge while bringing his blade down from his left in a horizontal swing that was blocked using the dagger while the duke org brought his blade in close for a stab, but the hero killer used his knife. It deflected the blade to his left and let him get into the face of his opponent, he grinned, and then bent backwards to do a backflip while swinging his spiked boot for the chin of the beast for a fatal injury, but the duke org's instincts were great and he bent backwards to avoid the hit himself. Just as Stain landed from the backflip, he felt the rush of Zen-Aku kneeing his gut repeatedly, to do that though he had to let go of his sights on the hero killer's knife, it was a risk that didn't pan out since that knife found it's way into his armor cracks, it pierced his side, missing vitals. Zen-Aku fell back a bit and knelt down stabbing his dagger into the ground before reaching and pulling the knife out of his side before throwing it and imbedding it into the wall to his left, he grabbed his dagger and stood to full height, then rushed back into the fight with his natural speed.

Iida and Native couldn't believe it, a UA student was going toe to toe with the hero killer, sure the kid had power shown from the sports festival, but being able to match swing for swing against the hero killer was something unheard of, both were skilled with swords and knives to mastery level. One would swing while the other blocked or parried with practiced ease, a reverse grip used and it would prove just as ineffective against their foe, spiked boots, clawed hands, each attack landing with a clank of steel that told them that it wouldn't end pretty, but all they could do was watch it. When Zen-Aku and Stain stepped away from each other again, this time it was Stain with the stab wound, during their thoughts they didn't pay attention to the fight so they missed what happened, but judging by the blood from the bottom of the crescent blade and the hole in the shoulder, they guessed.

Zen-Aku was the one to charge in first this time and began with a continued infinity pattern straphang while Stain began backflipping to avoid them, after a few meters of it he stopped and swiped with his own sword to stop the incoming attack, it worked because the duke org blocked. Using the flat of his crescent blade to block while continuing his assault he blocked it in just the right spot to have the point facing down and the blade part facing the hero killer, it was a bad move on the killer's part, because as he fell to land on his feet, he was caught with a serious swipe. It caught him right at the chest and let his own blood spray free from the deep gash, but at the same time the hero killer used his own skill to bring out a knife at the same time and toss it, having it stab into the left foot of the duke org causing him to grunt in pain at the sudden injury.

Stain wasn't done yet though, because with the throw and trying to ignore the wound on his chest, he spun with the throw to the left and did a spin kick with his spiked boots at the same time Zen-Aku thrust out his crescent blade, the result was that neither could use their left arms. The hero killer embedded his spiked boot into the duke org's arm with enough force to crush it while said wolf monster stabbed his crescent blade through the insane fanatic's arm at the elbow joint, they were each too hyped up on adrenaline to care about something like pain though. Pushing through the pain, the hero killer brought down his sword for a stab at the same time the duke org rushed forward with his horn, the sword was stabbed into the kneecap and down the calve of the duke org at the same time the horn was stabbed through the hero killer's right shoulder.

Zen-Aku didn't let that deter him though so he yanked his horn out and launched up using only his right leg and used the bottom of his crescent blade and stabbed the hero killer in the back just below his shoulder blades, at the same time he felt a sharp pain in his back as well, a very sharp pain. Stain, at the same time the duke org shot up, shot forward as well and was going to stab him through the gut with his still usable right hand, but instead decided to bring his sword in a reverse grip and stab him in the back, right in the lower back where it came out his abdomen. They both stood there, locked in place, knowing that if either one pulled out first they'd topple over, but they both knew they didn't have to pull out as one would have to let go of their blade, and in the end, it was the duke org's enhanced stamina that won out against the normal human.

Stain had no choice but to let his hand slip from his grasp as he passed out from the blood loss and fell while leaning on Zen-Aku's left shoulder, "you did good, it's been some time since I saw my blood last," the duke org stated as he tried to gently move so that the hero killer would fall. He barely moved to the right and the hero killer fell off him and landed hard into the pavement, though the action itself didn't seem like a good idea at the moment since now he feels like toppling over as well, and just barely managed to move to lean against the wall to his left for support.

"That was a reckless thing you just did," an unknown voice said from the other wall as he rose, Zen-Aku turned in that direction and saw that it was Native, rising now that the hero killer was defeated, "but regardless of that, thank you for what you did, me and that kid might be dead now."

Iida was rising as well, and walked over to the hero killer and glared down at him, he would have done something, but knew that now wasn't the time, so he just went to a trash bin and began looking for rope while Native took all the weapons from Stain, "check for hidden ones too," Zen-Aku stated. Native nodded and began to look for them, he would have told the duke org that he was a pro, but he didn't think of hidden weapons and so didn't comment while the duke org made a call, "Gran Torino, I need emergency services at 4-2-10 Ekou Street, ambulance and Police, no fire department."

The duke org hung up just as Iida returned and began to tie up Stain along with Native after removing all of his weapons, had more on him than they had ever seen anyone carry before, they were soon done and looked over to the duke org, or was still bleeding, "you shouldn't have come. You said you wouldn't be coming, I'd receive no help or aid of any kind if I came to confront the hero killer, I even disregarded the safety of innocents like you warned me about and you still came to help," Iida stated as he walked over to help the duke org lean on him to walk to the street.

"I thought about doing that, following my word and letting you get either killed or injured because of your own folly, but that is what the old me would have done, the one consumed with vengeance and doesn't like to be deterred from that goal, and I'm not him anymore," Zen-Aku replied.

They reached the street with the duke org leaning against Iida and Native pulling Stain, "what are you doing here boy," the voice of Gran Torino shouted out at him from across the street before something came flying at him, "I thought I told you to stay on the bullet train," it came with a kick.

Iida was shocked that the pro hero he was interning with would kick him like that even though he was injured, but the duke org was not impressed, "and risk people dying because of some pathetic law, I think not," the wolf creature stated while still leaning against his classmate.

"What all happened to you anyways, you're all cut up," the deadpan eyes from his intern told Gran Torino that it was an obvious statement, that is when he got a good look at the four people, a kid in white armor, Native, and the hero killer tied up neatly, wait, "what the hell happened?"

"Sir," Native voiced recognizing a senior hero when he saw one, "I was captured by the hero killer and was about to die when the white armored boy came in and distracted the hero killer long enough for the one known as Zen-Aku to come in and fight him on a one on one fight to save us."

Gran Torino sighed at the actions taken tonight, "I've already called for the ambulance and the police to come here, but let's get one thing straight, you will not be doing this again, understand," Iida looked disappointed in himself, but the duke org just deadpanned again, "I really don't like you."

Just then, something came flying into their direction, it was the same Nomu from earlier with the wings, as he got closer the other three were caught off guard when he began to drop down and reached to grab for Zen-Aku, he succeeded and grabbed hold of his neck and with a pull was flying. The winged creature didn't waste any time in flying up and began to take the duke rog to its master, nobody able to do anything until something hit the flying thing in the back, it was a spiked boot that tore through the wings of the creature and made it fall, now that let him act to get free. Someone else came running for the creature at the same time Zen-Aku pulled out his crescent blade again, with a twist he was in position to stab the creature in the chest through its heart just as the other person came in and stabbed its brain, killing it in two very fatal blows at the same time.

When both people looked up at the same time, Stain's red eyes stared back into Zen-Aku's amber eyes, both of them having serious cuts and stab wounds from the other's blades, but neither took their eyes off of the other one, "you're welcome… for the save," Stain commented shakily.

"I didn't…. need your help," the duke org commented back just as shakily, both of them have lost a lot of blood, and it was only when they heard Endeavor's voice that they turned, it was a bad move because the movement was the last straw that broke the dam and had both passed out.

* * *

Days later

Zen-Aku was in a hospital, that was obvious when he woke up to a white ceiling and the stench of sterilized equipment, he could feel the numerous bandages on his fur from where he was cut to pieces by the Hero Killer, and was that just him or was he also hearing light breathing as well. The duke org raised his head a bit to see what it was and found Todoroki asleep on a chair with Iida watching from across the room sitting in another far off chair with his shoulder bandaged up from the bandages peaking out form the clothes he's currently wearing, still looking a bit formal.

The duke org looked to the chair where Todoroki was and summoned his crescent blade and wacked the boy on the head with the side of the blade, "what are you doing here," he asked as the boy rubbed his head in pain and the duke org sent his blade away so there was no evidence.

"Endeavor was my hero that I was interning with, we went to Hosu because that is where the Hero Killer was going to strike next, ran into the situation there with the Nomu, afterwards we ran into your hero while chasing one of the Nomu, this one could fly so it was faster than the other. He told us that there was an emergency at your location, so he went ahead to check it out and left the Nomu situation to us, while chasing the Nomu it led us to your location where we found you and the Hero Killer standing over the body of a dead Nomu," Todoroki informed the other two.

Zen-Aku nodded before Iida spoke after that, "the Hero Killer is in the hospital under strict guard, you two had quite the fight, matching each other with attack after attack and even besting him in the end, neither of you used your powers and still you won, just how strong are you," he asked.

"WHAT," came a voice from the doorway, they turned to see Gran Torino and Manual standing there, came to check in and see if the duke org was awake yet, imagine their surprise, "you mean it to say that you didn't even use your quirk to fight him, you risked your life for just a good swordfight."

"I did not, I risked my life making sure that there would be no legal repercussions after our fight was done, and I have to say it was by far the toughest fight I've ever had," Zen-Aku didn't miss the twitch of Todoroki's eyebrow after he said that, or the deep frown forming on his face.

"So that explains it," a new voice said and in came a humanoid dog with brown around the eyes and ears and white everywhere else with a strip going through his forehead, he was dressed in a black and white suit with a cow spotted tie and a long overcoat, he looked very professional, "woof." Less professional now, "I am Hosu's chief of police, Kenji Tsuragamae, I wanted to meet the UA student who singlehandedly brought down the Hero Killer," he stated casually while keeping a cool look on his face, the duke org only nodded, "Stain has some serious injuries you know. Severe slashes on fatal areas, stab wounds that are at a few points we're not sure if he's human he's survived for so long," he expected to see some kind of reaction from the duke org, but he got nothing, "and you just said you avoided using your quirk to avoid legal backlash, smart move."

"Yes, no doubt you've heard form the other two about what happened, but once Gran Torino ordered me to stay on the train I decided to ignore it and leave to see if I could provide assistance where I could, found the Nomu situation and cut the arm off of the largest one about to hit a hero. That is where Manual recognized me and requested that I find Iida and escape with him, I went to search the back alleys of Hosu away from the chaos since that is where the Hero Killer was likely to be, found him about to take the life of Iida had I not appeared to take his attention. Then we talked for a bit before it was decided that we were to fight without our powers, me to save myself any backlash afterwards and him because I requested it, I believe he respects me because he sees me as a potential true hero, so we fought without our quirks," Zen-Aku reported.

"I see," the chief stated as he bowed his head, "at the same time you made a decision that would benefit both you and your interning hero, saying that when your hero was called to action you chose to ignore his order and acted of your own volition, which set him free of any backlash. Then you made this report while making sure to mention that Manual had been thinking about Iida and at the same time did his hero work, meaning that Iida himself snuck off from Manual meaning he doesn't get that big of any backlash either, only a scolding at best, pay deduction at worst. Then it came down to you, you saved a hero before being ordered to go find a fellow student and then fleeing, you chose instead to stay and save his life while at the same time the life of another pro hero all while you only used your own skill and physical ability meaning you get off free."

"While also being able to take the credit for the capture of the Hero Killer and getting a jump-start on my career as a pro hero once I get out of UA and obtain my full license," the duke org finished the summed up situation the chief was going to have to present to the public now, no other way.

"Very well, the UA student known as Izuku Midoriya who has been given the name of Zen-Aku, has successfully fought and arrested the Hero Killer Stain, doing so without using his quirk and without the cost to innocent lives, that is the gist of what will be ran," the chief told them all.

"Don't forget to mention that I saved the lives of Tenya Iida, Ingenium's younger brother, and Native, two random individuals who had became targets of the Hero Killer," Zen-Aku told him, and the chief nodded as he left the room, knowing that he had nothing left to say at the moment.

When the chief was gone, Gran Torino just looked at the duke org with something similar to quiet horror at what he just did, "you realize you just got away with taking on a dangerous criminal and getting ahead of the others who are heroes, right, not even those like Ingenium won against him."

"I realize that and I honestly don't care, all these people care about is talent and quirks," the duke org rose from his bed and walked calmly to the window where he stared out, "but skill that has been honed and trained is far superior to a power someone was lucky enough to be born with."

* * *

A/N: I have given this a bit of thought, but I was thinking of either it being a Zen-Aku/Mandalay, or a Zen-Aku/Pixie Bob. Instead of pairing him up with a kid, even though he's posing as one, I might make it that he's able to get with either one of those two or , not sure on that yet.


	7. Zen-Aku vs All Might

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 7

Zen-Aku vs All Might

To be honest, Zen-Aku didn't like his internship, Gran Torino was too old and played games with people, thought he knew best because of his experience and the fact that he had a teacher's license, so when it came time to leave, "I don't like you or your personality, goodbye," he stated.

"You should lose that attitude of superiority you have on you old man," Zen-Aku told the aging stump of a man from the bottom of the steps that did nothing to diminish the height difference, "it makes you look less than savory when your next do for a paycheck when you save someone." The duke org left without hearing a retort from the old man, they don't like each other for different reasons he was sure, the duke org because of his thoughts on what a hero should be like and Gran Torino because he knew of the wrongs done of heroes but did nothing to help at all. Secrets that should be shared between those in the know of One For All is being kept from him, such as the quirk's origin, or the very idea that if a quirk can be given, than a quirk's opposite should also be possible, taking quirks away, giving them so someone else, all possibilities.

Yet at the same time he understands why he doesn't know these things, he was unpredictable now, before they had a base line for what he'd do since they only knew him as the weak 'Deku' that had the drive to go forward but not the power, back whenever the boy was quirkless. He still had a never give up attitude, he was inspired by the simplest of heroes doing the simplest of good, he still had hope for his 'friend', Bakugo, and he still believed in the black and white of good and evil, he was a naïve child that didn't know the truth of the world at large though. Zen-Aku was different on a fundamental level, not only did he understand and combat the world at large, he knew that there was no such thing as black and white, he never gave up still, but the duke org was at his core still a monster who has known what it truly means to be a hero. So while 'Deku' would have charged headfirst into danger and after many different attempts found an inconvenient way to use his power, Zen-Aku made a thought out plan and used his opponent's power against them or used his own overwhelming power against them.

It didn't help at all though considering that the information being kept from him outweighed any of that, he needed to know the origin of this power to help make it better, if he could find the origin point he could build on it and help infuse the power with his natural duke org powers. Then he'd be able to use it more fluidly and naturally to strengthen himself, meaning he'd be able to stay at the same level continually without actively bringing forth the power and would have to only actively sending the power away, he just needed to find the answers.

The answer came the next day and everyone was back in the classroom like nothing happened during their internships, well, not nothing, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, holy crap, what the heck Bakugo," the two voices of Eijiro and Sero exclaimed from in front of a prim and proper looking Bakugo.

"Stop laughing, my hair's gotten used to this and I can't get it back the right way," Bakugo was shaking from rage but held it in even though the other two were laughing at him, "did you not hear me, I'll kill you both," Sero said something while laughing, "what'd you call me?"

His hair went back to normal looking, for Bakugo at least, while the two idiots began laughing even harder, while on the other side of the class, Mina was talking with Kyoka about internships, "awesome, you got to face actual villains," Mina exclaimed while talking with the girl.

"Well, I didn't fight, all I did was help people evacuate and provide logistical support," Kyoka corrected while playing with her earphone cords ears, she did look a little down at the correction though, so perhaps she wanted a bigger role in capturing the villains, not that she could do much.

"I spent basically the whole time training and cleaning the ship deck, though there was this one day we caught a bunch of drug smugglers," Tsu chimed into the conversation and got a simultaneous 'cool' from the two girls, "what about you Ochaco, how was your week?"

Uraraka breathed out a heavy breath with a… different aura about her, "I'd say that it was very enlightening," she said before doing some moves the battle hero taught her, they were the basics though, but you could tell she knew a bit more advanced stuff from her posture and form.

"After one week she's like a totally different person, everyone at my internship loved me, it was actually kinda great, but if you wanna talk about the ones who really changed, it was those two," Denki drew attention to the back where Iida and Zen-Aku were and away from him and Mineta.

Then came multiple comments about how the class was glad and proud at the two for coming back safely and Zen-Aku being able to take down the Hero Killer, they must have thought he was unprepared or something, but he knew exactly what he was doing, not his fault the others didn't. Then Ojiro spoke up, "did you guys hear the news about the hero killer, everyone's been saying that he was somehow connected to the league of villains, can you imagine how frightening it would have been if that creep had been there when they attacked the USJ," his point was moot now.

"He's scary yeah, but did you see him in that weird video, it's all over the internet, Stain's a pretty evil villain, but, like, super tenacious, he's almost kinda cool, don'tcha guys think," Denki commented the last bit offhandedly, then realized his mistake and covered his mouth, "uh-oh, dude."

"No, it's okay, you're fine, it is true that he's quite a tenacious villain, I understand why people might think he was cool, but instead of helping the world, his beliefs led him to cold blooded murder, no matter his motives, killing cannot be condoned," Iida naively stated looking down. "To keep anyone else from suffering like me, well, I promise I will strive to be the perfect hero," he made the promise in an over exaggerated way, "and I do believe it's time for class to begin, everyone, please take your seats," great, the vice president from hell was back.

Great, everyone may have now been seated, but that means that class starts, and who else would be the teacher that day but All Might with everyone in front of a factory area, "I am here, hope you're ready to return to our lessons, today it's hero basic training. Feels like I haven't seen you in a while, welcome back," the big annoyance boomed, "listen carefully for what's in store, we're going to be conducting a little race, take everything you've learned from your internships and apply it to this rescue training."

Iida automatically raised his right hand, "if it's rescue training, than shouldn't we be at the USJ instead," that would be the wrong area, he said this was a race and there isn't really a course for rescue at the USJ, it was more for rescue disaster based events, not obstacle based rescue.

"Ah, that facility specializes in disasters, as I said earlier, this is a race, so prepare, you're about to step into field gamma, inside is an area full of factories that form an intricate labyrinth, so good luck finding your way around, you'll be competing in groups of five. Each person starts from a different location on the outskirts of the model city, I'll send a distress signal, and you do what you must to rescue me, whoever finds me first wins, but try and keep the property damage to a bare minimum, please," he says pointing to Bakugo.

The first group was Zen-Aku, Ojiro, Iida, Sero, and Mina, all starting at different points as previously said, the four others were all making sure to stretch before standing straight and waiting for the buzzer to go off, the duke org was standing there with his arms crossed waiting. He'll win this challenge no matter what, but his biggest challenge might be Sero, Ojiro is agile, but not very fast, Mina could use her acid to slide around on and yet couldn't travel as fast as the others because she could lose focus easily, Iida was good for a race, but not on the tight turns. Sero would be able to go over everything with his tape and swing him over the obstacles, the difference is that by the time Sero shoots his tape to a good spot, Zen-Aku would have already jumped twice as far ahead while in a shadow phase and got far past him and won the race, so he did.

"And it's over," All Might exclaimed as he held out a sash for the 'hero' to wear, "thanks hero, and congratulations," the duke org wore it, but it made a growl escape his throat, "young Midoriya may have come in first, but compared to the start of the year, you all showed me some incredible improvements. Keep working and preparing for your upcoming final exams," the others responded with a 'sir' like it was an order, "group one leave the field, you're up group two," All Might put a hand on Midoriya's shoulder as he was leaving, "find me after class, we need to talk about some things."

Zen-Aku nodded and walked away while the other group began to get into position, after everything they all went to the locker rooms to change back into their school uniforms while talking about how much work today's training has been and making them all work hard. Then the little pervert known as Mineta spoke up, "hey Midoriya, you won't believe what I just found, the jackpot, someone Shawshanked a hole in this wall, a previous generation has given us a gift, you know what's next door right, this looks into the girls' locker room."

"Don't even think about it," Iida demanded while making a hand gesture again, "peeping on them like that would be criminal," the duke org wondered why he even bothered, he only answered to one thing and it was that very thing that Zen-Aku was going to put into him so he understood.

"Then you'll have to throw me in solitary confinement, 'cuz you can't stop me," Mineta ripped the poster covering the hole off and was about to peep when a fist caught him in the nose, then he was picked up by the neck and received ten solid blows to the same spot each after the other.

"Are you girls alright," the duke org asked and got a resounding 'yes' from the other side, "even if the walls were thin, there is a good sized hole in the wall you fool, did you think they wouldn't be able to hear you raising your voice like that," the answer was a gargle of blood dripping from Mineta. The duke org dropped the boy and picked up the poster and rolling it up, then slid it into the hole to make sure it had a temporary plug while the school was notified, "do that or anything similar again and you will taste my blade in a bad way," he finished walking out and left the room.

It was later that day after school was out that he walked into the staff room to find All Might in his true form sitting down looking quite serious, staring almost blankly to the table as Zen-Aku wordlessly sat in the seat in front of the table that separated the two of them during the meeting. All Might spoke first, "you went through a lot recently, and I'm sorry I wasn't around to help you out," the duke org didn't say anything prompting All Might to continue, "I heard that the hero killer is able to paralyze anyone after he had swallowed your blood in the attack, did he get yours?"

So that was what this was about, "no, we had a fight with only skill, neither of us used our power, so there wasn't even a chance for him to get One For All from my blood, though I don't know about anyone else after the battle," Zen-Aku stated and felt All Might stare at him, "what?"

"First off, One For All can only be given to another person if you, the bearer, intend to pass it along, it's not something that can just be taken by force, although it can be transferred by force, like a girl forcing chocolate on her crush," All Might informed him, though he needed better analogies. "The quirk you now have is unique, and you should know its origin, One For All was derived from another odd quirk, a power that's very old, the name of that quirk is All For One, it allowed it's user to take quirks from others, the user could keep the quirks or give them to someone."

"I get it, a play on the words One For All and All For One, One For All was meant to be shared and be for everyone while All For One was meant to bring everything into himself to keep for selfish reasons, clever," Zen-Aku commented with All Might nodded, he forgot how smart he was at times.

"This was back when quirks first started to show up, before society had figured out how to deal with the newly powered among them, when quirks first appeared, suddenly it was impossible to say what it meant to a 'normal person, laws and human rights were hotly debated, society decayed. During the chaotic period of change, there was one person who managed to rally many people together, went by name of his power, All For One, he stole quirks from others and then with his overwhelming abilities he spread his influence across the country, he manipulated people to serve himself. He committed evil acts with little resistance, in the blink of an eye he became the leader of villains and ruled over Japan, it's the kind of shameful history people would rather ignore, but when a person gains true power, they enjoy showing it off to others," All Might informed.

"This feels like it should be a big reveal from you, but it won't be because I can probably guess," the hero rose an eyebrow at the duke org, "All For One transferred his power to someone who had a quirk that melded with some other quirk and wanted power for himself but knew he couldn't win."

"Close, but not true, This evil man had a quirkless younger brother, he was small and sickly, but he had a strong sense of justice, they couldn't have been more different, it pained the brother to see All For One's deeds, so he kept resisting him, but then All For One had a big idea come to him. He transferred a quirk to his sibling, one that would allow him to stockpile power, we don't know if it was a gift he was giving his brother, or if he just wanted to force him to submit, but similar to you, everyone thought he was quirkless, turns out the brother did have a quirk. Though even he hadn't realized this to be the case, he had a useless power that only allowed him to pass on quirks, and so, the stockpiling ability merged with the younger brother's power, and that is how One For All came to be," All Might was just about finished with his explanation.

"It's ironic, isn't it, good sometimes spawns from the evil," Zen-Aku commented and let All Might nod, "he must have a quirk that allows him to stop aging and the younger brother let his quirk pass on so that future and better qualified generations could fight and take down All For One."

"Yes, eventually it was my turn and I managed to defeat All For One, at least that's what I thought, he survived and is now back in action as the brain behind the league of villains," All Might stood up and walked to the window, "so now you know, what the entire purpose of OFA is."

"Yes I do, one day I will have to fight him and that is where I must end this cycle," All Might looked to the duke org in surprise, "when I fight him, I'll end the cycle that was started," the duke org stood up and began to leave, but All Might grabbed his arm before he could get out the door.

"I need to talk to you about another thing," the duke org nodded and sat back down, as did the pro hero, "remember that mask you found that night," a nod, "well it turns out that my detective friend thinks it might be connected to All For One, who somehow ordered it for some reason. The working theory is the mask might have some significance to him that we have yet to determine, maybe a gift from before he became evil or something, or he's found out that he can transfer power into objects to give them life, we don't know which yet but those seem reasonable."

'No, the most likely outcome is that he heard of my legend and thought that he could gain my power, or take the power that resides in my mask,' Zen-Aku thought to himself, openly he said, "I'm guessing that you want me to hand the mask over to you and the police to watch over it."

"No, only three people know that you have it, you, me, and detective Tsukauchi, it would be safer if you held onto it, if we draw them out of hiding with it now then we risk losing too many people in the fight, so for now don't tell anyone you have it," All Might stated and got up to leave after it. Though he did look a bit disturbed halfway through his explanation, so he must have figured something out, he left in quite the hurry after it, the duke org would have to watch him, he may be a bit smarter than what he let on, so he quietly snuck out of the staff room to go home.

* * *

Few days later

Class had just ended and Aizawa was bidding his class farewell, "all right, that's it for class today, there's only one week left before your final exams begin, I'm sure you're all studying constantly, don't forget to keep training, the written exam is only one element, there's also the practical."

Aizawa left after that and left them to talk amongst themselves, so as soon as he closed the door, both Denki and Mina both exclaimed, "I've barely even taken notes this semester," and Mina was laughing at that fact which added up since she was also ranked 19th in the class.

"With the sports festival and the internship, I didn't have time to read the textbook," Denki stated and made an excuse for himself, the others did the same things as him, he was just stupid, so it was no wonder that he was going to fail and remain at the bottom in 20th place.

"It's true that we haven't had very much free time lately," Tokoyami stated with a bit of a sweat drop at the excuse Denki was using, though he didn't have anything to worry about since he was ranked at the 14th place, it wasn't bad at all once you consider who he's up against in bottom ten.

"We'd barely learned anything when we took our midterms so they didn't seem all that hard but I'm kinda worried about these, we've been through a lot, and they probably won't pull any punches when it comes to testing us," Sato, who placed 12th stated, Koda, who he talked to, placed 11th.

"As someone ranked in the top ten, I'm not that concerned," Mineta stated with a bandaged nose from his beating at the duke org's hands, thought he was right, he was ranked 9th out of all the other students, now nobody is going to love him for being a funny idiot, now a creepy pervert.

"As vice class rep, I have high hopes that we'll make UA proud," Iida stated while holding his right bandaged hand in the air, why the 3rd place was saying something the two that were at the bottom had no idea, when it comes to encouragement, those at the top are just discouraging them.

"It's pretty hard to fail if you just pay attention in class, isn't it," at least Todoroki knew what to say to some of the students about getting good grades, though when you're in the 5th seat, how much is your words worth to those that haven't figured that out by now, they need a miracle.

"Hey, don't worry about it you two, I can catch you up to speed one the important topics, if you want," Momo offered them, and since she was 1st in the class, her idea was fine, "I'm afraid I won't be any help when it comes to the practical though," there was that lack of confidence again.

"I've been studying, but I really need help understanding quadratic functions, so could you help me out too," Jiro asked out loud, but considering that she's 7th in the class, it was difficult to see her failing at anything in regards to this test, even her power could be used effectively for cheating.

"I really need someone to tutor me too, classical Japanese is killin' me," Sero said as if he was falling deeper into the pits of despair, though his standing in class right now aptly reflected what he should be feeling, since he's in 17th place and all, though he really shouldn't have waited this long.

"Is there room for one more, I'm afraid I'm falling behind a little bit as well, this could help," Ojiro proposed to the rest of the class that were in trouble of failing, though, he shouldn't worry too much, seeing as how he's in 8th place and not in danger, but brushing up on weakness isn't bad.

Momo got excited about that for some reason, "wonderful," she jumped up from her seat, "yes, let's do it, okay then, we can hold a study session at my residence over the weekend," she now began to mutter to herself as she made plans, this wasn't a 'Deku mutter' though this had bounce?

Eijiro was listening in and decided to make a comment about his suggestion to Bakugo, "sounds like I should be studying with them," not a good thing to say to the already disturbed Bakugo, but considering he's in the 15th spot, maybe some help from the guy in the 4th spot would help. Aoyama and Shoji had a small talk as well, Shoji might be offering Aoyama some help as well, with Shoji's 10th place, it wouldn't be bad to help out the guy who got the 18th spot overall, so he could do a lot worse for a tutor, or maybe they were just talking, the duke org was losing interest.

Lunch came and Zen-Aku was sitting on the rafters waiting for the period to end, he was catching up on some playing that he was missing while reminiscing about the past, letting the memories flow through him as the song filled the hall, the students eating to the melody as they conversed. It wasn't long before the boy from the sports festival, Monoma, if the duke org remembered correctly, came to the rest of his class and knocked against Iida's head, "oh sorry, you're head's so big that it's hard to miss," Iida looked to be about to say something, but the boy began again. "I heard your class's mutt took on the hero killer, just like in the sports festival, class 1-A isn't happy unless they're the center of attention, but you do realize you're not in the spotlight because people think you're good heroes right, it's just that you keep getting into so much trouble. Here's food for thought: someday, the rest of us might get caught up in your mess, and then we'll all become unwitting victims as well, what kind of horrible villains will you bring down upon us, what demon-," that was as far as he got because he was then grabbed by the throat by a black hand.

"If you wish to confront someone, confront them and only them, not the class that had nothing to do with it, I took on and won against the hero killer and yet you think of only the fame, and didn't I tell you to be quiet or you'll face off against me," Zen-Aku asked as he tightened his grip on him.

Then a large hand came in and grabbed the duke org's hand, "I think he's had enough, his face is turning blue," the voice of Kendo broke through his ears and the boy was indeed turning blue, so the duke org let him go to choking on the ground and gasping for air now that he was able to.

"Don't talk in mine or my class's presence again, or next time Kendo won't be able to help you," the duke org ordered before turning to walk out of the lunch room and left Kendo to talk with the others in the group, and everyone to glare at Monoma for ruining the music that was playing.

"All right," both Denki and Mina shouted out once they heard the news that they will more than likely be fighting robots, "this'll be super easy if it's just robots, such awesome news, I can let loose with robots and Mina doesn't have any trouble melting them at all," Denki exclaimed.

Then Bakugo decided to speak up, "it shouldn't matter if it's robots or actual people, so why are you morons so excited, you need to learn how to control your quirk, ya got it," he yelled at Denki and Mina, the two being the loudest about their joy at being able to cut loose against robots. Then Bakugo turned his attention to the duke org, "hey Deku," everyone in the room froze at what Bakugo called the one he use to bully after being told never to call him that ever again, "we'll be getting new rankings for the finals with our individual scores. So we'll all know exactly where we're standing, I'll show you how much better I am than you and everyone else," Bakugo turned before looking over his shoulder at Todoroki, "and Todoroki, I'll kill you too," the explosion making boy was about to storm out when the voice of Zen-Aku stopped him.

"Let me give you some advice then on how to beat me," the duke org calmly stood up and walked to stand beside the boy, "the same advice you gave me one day on how to get a quirk," he leaned in to whisper, "pray you get better in your next life, then go take a swan dive off the roof." Instead of waiting to hear a response, Zen-Aku walked past the stunned boy who began shaking at having his words thrown back at him, it will only be a matter of time now before the boy does something drastic now, drastic to the point of wanting to prove himself and himself alone.

That was trivial though, what was more troubling was that there was no way that the school would make them fight robots, they've proven time and time again that the robots are not a good enough challenge for them, so what were they going to give as a replacement for the practical.

* * *

Two weeks later

Two weeks later and it was finally time for the test, not the written test, that was just getting over with, this was the test that actually mattered to many that took it, the combat test, which the duke org had some ideas of what it would be, but nothing concrete until one proved to be right. Now they were all standing in full costume in front of the teachers with two large buildings at their backs, they were only missing two teachers, "now then, let's begin the last test, remember, it's possible to fail this final if you wanna go to camp, then don't make any stupid mistakes," Aizawa stated.

"Oh yeah, we know we're fightin' those big ol' metal robots, so bring them on so we can get to some fireworks, s'mores, and the rest of camp," Denki shouted excitedly with Mina cheering on as well, at least everyone now knew that they weren't going to have a good summer.

"Actually, this year's tests," a ruffling in Aizawa's scarf said before out popped the principle of the school, Nezu, "will be completely different for various reasons," he said and earned questions form the students that were answered as Nezu got off Aizawa, "the tests now have a new focus. There will be hero work of course, but also teamwork and combat between actual people, so what does that mean for you," the principle pointed to them ominously, "you students will be working together in pairs, and your opponents will be one of our esteemed UA teachers, how fabulous."

"Additionally, your partners and your opponents have already been chosen, they were determined at my discretion based on various factors, including fighting style, grades, and interpersonal relationships, so first are Yaoyorozu and Todoroki as a team against me," Aizawa said creepily. He grabbed his scarf as to emphasize what he could do while both Momo and Todoroki looked a bit shocked at who they will be going up against in the finals, "then we have Midoriya paired with Bakugo," Bakugo looked shocked looking to the duke org leaning on a post, "and their opponent is…"

A large man jumped from the roof and slammed into the ground, it was All Might, he rose up from a crouch as he spoke, "I am here to fight," he looked on with a head held high and signature smile, "you're going to have to work together boys, if you want to win," Bakugo growled at that.

"Now, let's announce the teams and their teachers they'll be fighting in order," 1st was Cementoss vs Sato and Eijiro, 2nd was Ectoplasm vs Tsu and Tokoyami, 3rd was power loader vs Iida and Ojiro, 4th was Aizawa vs Momo and Todoroki, 5th was Thirteen vs Aoyama and Uraraka. 6th was Principle Nezu vs Mina and Denki, 7th was Present Mic vs Koda and Jiro, 8th was Snipe vs Toru and Shoji, 9th was Midnight vs Sero and Mineta, and 10th was All Might vs Zen-Aku and Bakugo, it was the only actual fight that seemed to be completely decided by the majority for the class. "To complete the exam, you'll have thirty minutes, in order to win, your objective is to put these handcuffs on your teacher, or you can win if one of you manages to escape from the combat stage," the cuffs weren't really anything special, just a six sided hexagon looking yellow cuff.

"This will be much different than that combat training y'all went through earlier, after all, you're up against people way better than you," Present Mic boasted a little bit, that was the wrong thing to say, but Zen-Aku decided to hold his tongue, Jirou said something and caused the teacher to yell.

"This time your exam will be very similar to a real battle, as strange as it is, think of us as villains, assuming you come across your enemy and think you can win, fight, but in instances where you're outmatched, it would be smarter to run away and find help, right Iida and Midoriya." Aizawa explained to them and watched as only Iida bowed his head in shame, the duke org didn't look disturbed by the insult at all, mainly because there was nothing in his actions that required shame, he fought, he saved, he won, that was all there was to it and all he cared about.

"This is a test of your decision-making skills, you fight and win or run away and win, but with these rules, you're probably thinking your only real choice is to flee," All Might said before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a silver and black band, able to go on wrist and ankle. "That's why the support course made these super-clever accessories for us," they were ultra-compressed weights, "they'll add about half our body weight to our physiques, not much but they will eat up our stamina and make it harder to move around," he said as he put them on.

"let's begin the test, we'll begin with the teams taking the exam in the same order you were called in, we have a stage prepared for you, Sato, Kirishima, you're up," the teachers began leaving as Aizawa finished, "those waiting their turn to fight can wither watch or go strategize, your choice."

Zen-Aku walked off and decided to just strategize on his own since he knew Bakugo wouldn't be up to it, since they were close to woods, he decided to go for a walk until it was time for his fight and think back to what he thought would help him in the fight against All Might, the best way to win. Teamwork is out of the question, at this stage of their lives Bakugo is too prideful and would never fight with him on any ground, more than likely the boy would go straight in for the opponent and get taken out first without actually doing anything worth mentioning to All Might. Going at him with only speed and quick attacks won't work, from all of the research done, he learned that the pro hero is faster than him in this scenario, in short bursts of speed with no long distance running involved, All Might was faster than him, but can't hold the speed for long though. Strength was also out of the question, being able to take on the Nomu in a contest of strength while all he could do was slice through it was already a proven disadvantage, it was the only thing that he learned then, his strength and power of will was far stronger than many others out there. So the only real answer was to out skill and outthink him, his skills with a blade and hand-to-hand would hold him off for a bit at least, but to outthink him he would need to do something that the hero didn't expect, something only a truly crazy person that had nothing to lose would do.

Cementoss vs Sato and Eijiro- fail

Ectoplasm vs Tsu and Tokoyami- pass

Power Loader vs Iida and Ojiro- pass

Aizawa vs Momo and Todoroki- pass

Thirteen vs Aoyama and Uraraka- pass

Principle Nezu vs Mina and Denki- fail

Present Mic vs Koda and Jiro- pass

Snipe vs Toru and Shoji- pass

Midnight vs Sero and Mineta- pass

"In the end I never thought of a strategy I could use to win this fight," Zen-Aku commented to himself as he watched Bakugo approach the area where they would be fighting the number one hero, "I would ask if you want to work together, but I already know your answer is no."

"You're damn right, but it doesn't matter what your strategy is or not, I'm going to beat him, I'll toy with him until time is almost up and then I'll win the fight for real," the boy was just delusional if he thought that, proving everything about what the duke org thinks right as well.

"Fine then, you can fight him until I feel you've learned that you can't beat him and then I'll step in and take over, because I know that you'll fail like you always do," Bakugo turned back to yell at the duke org but he was gone in a distorted form of shadow before he even turned around. Bakugo began walking looking more aggravated now, that is until a large wave of compressed air suddenly demolished half the city they were in and shattered the glass to everything, he was blown back a bit from the shockwave he felt from the large blast of air, this won't be easy at al.

All Might's voice came in through the smoke kicked up from the high pressurized air punch, "who really cares if I destroy this city," his footsteps echoed throughout the city, "if you think of this as an exam and not a real fight, you'll be sorry, I'm a villain now heroes, remember that." His smile was still on his face, but his eyes looked sinister, it reminded Zen-Aku that every hero can turn into a villain with just one bad day, "you'd better come at me with everything you've got, I won't pull my punches," he charged head on aiming for Bakugo.

"How about a stun grenade," Bakugo asked out loud and brought up his left hand pointed outwards, it was glowing and set off a large explosion that aimed for blinding its opponent, "you'll get everything I've got All Might, like that wasn't my plan," he jumped to attack. "I never," that was as far as he got before All Might grabbed his face, "hold back, dammit," regardless of his face being grabbed by the number one hero, he decided to continually blast at All Might with smaller explosions to gauge the amount it would take to bring him down.

It did very little against the beast of a man before he spun the boy while grabbing his arm and slammed him into the ground, "your rapid-fire blasts were weak, hardly more than a sting," All Might said before standing up and looking around for Zen-Aku who disappeared before the exam. "ARE YOU NOT GOING TO HELP YOUR PARTNER, IT'S A PREREQUISITE FOR THIS EXAM YOU KNOW," he yelled to nothing before having to turn around and punch Bakugo in the stomach, forcing him to go off flying a ways away and spit up bile from his mouth before landing and bouncing to a stop on his stomach.

The duke org was as of this moment just standing on a rooftop above the fight looking on as the boy was being beaten badly, and while he was just standing there and watching, Bakugo was getting back up slowly, All Might sighed quietly to himself before walking up to the delusional kid. 'This is the worst fight I've ever witnessed, this is just a one sided slaughter against the boy,' Zen-Aku thought to himself as he pulled out his blade and got ready to intervene in the fight, 'has no one ever taught this boy humility, it could save his life if this was a real fight to the death.'

"I know why you're so angry young Bakugo, because of your constant losses to young Midoriya, right," All Might asked and Bakugo froze as he tried to stand, the hero stopped walking and stood beside the boy and went right into lecture mode, that wouldn't work on that brat as he is now. "You have to remember each of your rankings when the year first began though, it's much easier to level up when you're a novice, you're wasting your full potential, do you see that, do you understand me, you still have so much room to grow stronger, and I don't just mean your quirk."

"Shut up All Might," Bakugo interrupted the man before trying to stand up fully, "if I'm so bad that I have to get help from a weakling like him… then I'd rather lose this," he had a dazed look in his eye as if he'd been hit in the head a few too many times, that pride of his is going to kill him.

"I see," All Might said ominously, before raising his hand and forming a fist, "just remember that's what you said, hero," he brought down his massive fist into the ground, bringing up a dust cloud around the area the fist connected with and a few feet around as well, but he sure hit something.

What he hit was the black crescent blade of Zen-Aku that was shaking from the impact and keeping the fist away from the boy, "I do believe that you've learned that you are weak against the number one hero, that pride of yours is going to get you killed for real if it doesn't change." The duke org pushed on the blade and at an angle to send the fist to the side while bringing up his left knee and struck at All Might's injured stomach, then channeling One For All into the same leg kicked him into a building on the other side of the road that they were currently on for a moment.

"I didn't need you to save me," Bakugo grounded out as he tried to stand again, and eventually he did, but he was hunched over and didn't look too good, "I meant what I said, I'll fight him and win, just might take a bit longer than what I thought," this was going to get him killed soon.

"You have got to be the dumbest and most prideful human on the face of the Earth, you have been taken out of this fight," Zen-Aku said before turning in a flash and punching the boy the gut so hard he spit out the rest of his lunch, the boy fell down to the pavement and unconsciousness.

"You shouldn't have done that," All Might said as he finally started walking to the two he was supposed to be examining, "this has gone from a two on one, to a one on one, and now a one on one with a different opponent for me, this test was to test how well you two could do as a team."

"If you think that boy could be a team with anyone other than Eijiro than you and Aizawa are bigger fools than I thought," the hero narrowed his eyes at the duke org as he spoke up, "you let him into a hero school and so far have done nothing to curb his useless pride and ego, idiotic."

"So I was right in my realization before," All Might got into his stance with his fists raised feet a good distance apart, "you're not the same person I met all those months ago, you're something else entirely," his eyes seemed to glow from the power within them, "that mask from before."

Zen-Aku nodded, "it gave me power and the experience that it had gone through back before quirks first manifested," that was a bold faced lie since he was the mask, "that experience hardened me and let me see some truths, truth number one is that Bakugo is a villain in the making." He brought his crescent blade to a ready position with it being right next to his head parallel with the ground and his left arm outstretched with his knees slightly bent and feet a shoulder length apart, "unless he can throw away his pride and ego he will be killed in the real world."

"Here's truth for you," the pro hero rushed and spun around in mid air with a roll and brought his fist down, only to be blocked by the duke org holding his blade up to block the blow to the top of his head, the punch was held there, "you have power now Midoriya, but you've lost empathy."

"Not lost, just ran out of it for fools like him," Zen-Aku kept One For All activated from before and used it in conjunction with his org lightning to blast All Might away from him by striking him in the chest, but it only blew him back a few feet, "but let me show you what power I truly possess." It was clear that his power rose and kept rising, because now his silver hair was starting to look as if it was levitating, dark lightning arched all around him, his crescent blade gave off a faint black glow, and his amber eyes seemed to glow like All Might's did when he was serious.

"And as your teacher, I think I should do my best to school you," All Might stated as he also raised his power to match, that was more than fifteen percent, more than twenty-five percent even, "that looks to be about fifty percent, are you sure it's enough," the duke org nodded.

Zen-Aku charged for All Might, and the pro hero charged for the duke org, in mid run the crescent blade was tossed into the air as a kick was swung for a midsection, the duke org blocked the pro hero's kick with his left forearm as he turned to the right and countered with a swing of his claw. That was dodged by leaning back before the pro was forced to block with both forearms a swinging left kick, he tried to grab the armored shoulder of his student, but it was knocked away with the right hand before the duke org turned and delivered a left elbow to the pro's back. He stumbled forward only a bit before swinging around block the blade coming down for him with both hands, and then sent a knee out and hit the offender in the sternum to make him stumble back a little bit and let them both catch their breaths, both of them hit very hard.

Zen-Aku brought his crescent blade to the side in a swiping motion and charged as All Might did as well, the hero made to punch at the duke org, but it was blocked by the blade and parried to the side while a roundhouse back kick was aimed for the hero's head who leaned back to avoid it. As he leaned back, All Might tried to heel kick the duke org in the gut, but it was side stepped to the right and out of the way while swiping up with his crescent blade, landing a cut on the pro's hero costume, tearing the left arm bicep up just enough to see his muscle, but no actual cut to skin. Zen-Aku brought his crescent blade to right beside the left side of his head while turning his body in the same direction with his head facing forward, he waited for a few seconds before dashing off to the side away from the exit they hadn't even gotten close to getting to, All Might chasing him.

All Might failed to notice Bakugo starting to rise shakily from the concrete floor, bringing something out from in his hands and looking at it, it was a folded up piece of paper with the words, 'kacchan' printed out in English on it, and with a growl he opened it up to read a note. Zen-Aku passed it to him when he punched him in the gut and whispered just so he could hear, "play passed out kacchan," hearing his old nickname, for whatever reason, made him think that he should begrudgingly comply just this once as he was passed the note, so he did till they left.

The note ready, "I'm going to lead All Might away, once he's gone, run for the exit, we can't fight him, if you can't see that and really think you're pride is more important than seeing this through and passing, you need to wake up and see clearly that we can't win in a fight, at least not yet. You're too prideful, driven by ego and your own sense of superiority, but you are not, I've proven that to you time and time again, but if you want to grow stronger to fight me, then do so at camp after we've won, train and grow stronger, that is the only way to win, live to fight another day."

Bakugo crumpled the paper in his hands, lighting it on fire with a mini explosion, everyone thought he was strong, everyone knew that he was strong, but those guys were on a different level, and to compete with the big dogs, he needed to grow stronger as well, train and grow. He knew it and still his pride wouldn't let him run away, and yet his pride got him in this mess, showing people watching this and everyone else his weakness, he refuses to run, but there was no other way but to fight, or at least there wasn't, but now there was, a way to continue the fight.

An explosion knocked him from his thoughts for a moment and looked over to see Zen-Aku blasting at All Might with continuous crescent waves, he was buying time for Bakugo to get to the exit, and the only way to win was to get to the exit, to train at the camp and grow stronger. The building that All Might was on toppled over from the blasts and the hero jumped up and grabbed the duke org's legs when he also jumped and flipped under him before stopping at a higher elevation and double kicking the duke org down to the ground with a large crash. Live to fight another day, Bakugo knew it was the only way to win, but still, he can't run like a coward, that form of weakness was not something he would ever admit to, but he can't win as he was now, with a growl he began running as fast as he could, he has a chance to win.

Zen-Aku himself was only barely hanging on, his plan was simple, he was able to evade and parry most of All Might's strikes, and met him with his own, but he was down to his last legs, his energy was almost gone, breathing heavily as he rose slowly and faced down All Might as the hero landed. That last attack had him stay up in the air longer than someone else would have, but even gravity was bending its rules for the number one hero it seemed, deep amber eyes met glowing blue ones straight on, the pro hero didn't even look winded right now as he stood straight up. Zen-Aku brought his crescent blade to firing mode and got ready to put the last part of his plan into action, if he was right about what he would do, Bakugo should be… an explosion took All Might's attention away from him for a second, and he looked over to see young Bakugo there.

"DIE," Bakugo screamed at the same time he pulled the pin in his left grenade gauntlet and Zen-Aku fired a crescent wave at All Might, the pro was too stunned to react in time and got caught up in the explosion, "TAKE IT," Bakugo screamed again and threw his right gauntlet at the duke org. All Might swatted the some of the smoke away as the duke org jumped up and put the device on mid air and aimed it straight for the pro hero's head while he himself was upside down and pulled the pin on the device and let it go off and blast the pro hero again to into the ground, hopefully.

Zen-Aku landed with a crouch and began running while Bakugo began shooting explosions off to get to the exit faster through the air, that bought them time enough to make it to the exit, or at least just to it should it disorient the pro long enough to force his old wound to act up for a time. They should be able to make it close to the gate, and when they do All Might may be able to catch up to them by that point, when he does Zen-Aku will face him and hold him off while Bakugo finishes his part of the plan, first though, "I see that you understood the true meaning of the note."

"Yeah, well it wasn't all that hard to figure out, run to fight another day and winning, plus you mentioned camp, and we both know that really the damn camp is going to take everyone along, those that lost would need it the most, useless bastard," Bakugo muttered the last part.

"True, but if you really want to get stronger, then doing so after you failed would leave you with the other failures and they could have more work and be just about useless during training, so this was your better option," Zen-Aku guessed correctly and Bakugo just looked ahead with a scowl.

Instead he said, "damn," he looked around to the destroyed buildings they were passing as they approached the exit, "All Might's first attack was from the middle of the fake city, but it reached all the way to the gate, what the hell is that power," it was spoke aloud and to himself instead.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," the voice of All Might said from running right beside them now, they both stopped as he tried to punch both their guts with his fists, but Bakugo was barely able to dodge it by blasting backwards and Zen-Aku just dodged to his left with a jump.

"Go Bakugo," Zen-Aku stated as he stood in front of All Might who narrowed his eyes at the duke org who tricked him into letting the pro hero's attention draw away from Bakugo with taking on a different role for himself for the time being, the duke org rested his crescent blade on his shoulder.

"That was quite the trick you pulled there young Midoriya, making me think you had no sympathy for your old friend," All Might stated as he raised his fists and got ready for round two with the duke org, but now it might turn out into a two on one after all, he had to wait and see if it did.

"HEY LOSER," Bakugo yelled and let the duke org turn his head slightly to glance his way out of the corner of his eyes, "DON'T MAKE ME REGRET PUTTING TRUST IN A WEAKLING LIKE YOU," he turned and blasted himself off with a round of powerful explosions that couldn't be good for his arms.

All Might tried to speed past Zen-Aku to get to the boy, but the duke org shot lightning his way and forced him to jump to the right to avoid getting his and used that to his advantage and jumped to a building and used it as a springboard and got to right in front of a mid-aired Bakugo. With a mighty swing upwards, All Might brought up his left knee up to slam it into his face, but the duke org used his shadow phase to block it with his crescent blade and the boy used that as his chance to jump over him with blasts to get past the two fighting monsters of power to run. Though he did want to leave a parting gift, so when All Might brought out his right leg and swiped up with it and knocked the duke org away, he turned while in the air was met with Bakugo's two hands right at his face, and used two huge blasts to blow the pro hero away from them.

Zen-Aku landed on his right knee and left foot, but when he saw All Might fly overhead, he turned and shot org lightning at him to keep him off the ground, limiting his mobility a bit, but the pro knew that plan and gave a "New Hampshire Smash," to the air to avoid the lightning and land. Before charging at the guarding duke org and the flying student, Zen-Aku swiped for the pro hero, but he ducked and did something that in years to come he will regret, he reached up and grabbed his horn and flipped up and over his student and lifted him off his feet to throw him at Bakugo. Yet the horn that he grabbed wound up snapping in two right when he was thrown and Bakugo only barely managed to spin out of the way of the body heading his way, but he kept going, luck wasn't on All Might's side though as he had to stop and spit out some blood caught in his mouth.

This bought enough time for Bakugo to make it a foot from exiting the gate before he noticed, and when Bakugo stepped through, the buzzer sounded and the voice said, "Team Midoriya and Bakugo have passed the exam, all matches for the practical portion of 1-A's final are completed."

All Might took a knee as his failure to stop them, but at least he was a tough obstacle for them to have to overcome, "at least now we have a true measure of your power young Midoriya," he stood up and expected to see Zen-Aku start to get up, but he just laid there on the ground, unmoving. He walked over to the still body and gently patted his cheek like he did the first time they met, but he was unresponsive, then he noticed the horn that was broke off, he may have used too much power and broke it, "hey, young Midoriya, wake up," now All Might was getting worried.

"Hey nerd," Bakugo called out as he approached the downed boy, he jabbed at the unmoving boy with his foot to the duke org's ribs, "you hearing All Might or what, get up," but he was still unresponsive, "HEY, WAKE UP," Bakugo screamed at his old friend, but there wasn't even a twitch.

All Might knelt down and checked for a pulse on Zen-Aku's neck, little known fact, but since Zen-Aku had a host body that was more often than not human, he had a pulse since he had blood pumping through his host body's veins, and when the pro checked for one his pulse was weak. That is when All Might realized something, the other piece of a horn that broke off, he ran over and picked up the piece and brought it back over and put the piece against where it was broken, that is when the eyes seemed to blink before they heard, "class 1-B, Pony Tsunotori."

It was barely a whisper and All Might was so shocked by how weak it sounded that he pulled the horn piece away from him and the light faded from the duke org's eyes again, "what the hell," Bakugo grabbed his friend and began to shake him, "HEY, WAKE THE FUCK UP DEKU, WAKE UP!"

All Might had to pull the boy back because he was thrashing the body around too much, "go back to the building young Bakugo, tell them to fetch Pony Tsunotori from class 1-B, I'll take him to Recovery Girl's office," the boy begrudgingly complied, but he still didn't like leaving the body. He knelt beside the body, "what happened to you young Midoriya," he scooped him up in a princess carry and began to make his way back to Recovery Girl's office, being careful not to lose the horn piece as he did so, what just happened to make him just look so dead with the horn broken.

When he got to the nurse's office, she tried to heal him with her kiss, but it wasn't working, it was like the duke org was in a state of death, and was starting to fade fast when the door slammed open and Pony came rushing in with a leather bound book in her hand, an old journal it looked to be. "How long has his horn been broken off," she asked in a hurry and he told her approximately five minutes, she grimaced and that is when Aizawa came in with Tsu and Bakugo right behind him to get a look at his student, "we don't have much time before he dies, I need a few herbs to heal him."

That got them all to stare at her wide eyed, even Recovery Girl looked startled, Aizawa narrowed his eyes at the way she was acting and the leather journal she had in her hands, almost clutching it like it meant life or death, "and what if we don't, can't he survive without the horn," Asui questioned.

"No he can't, he'll die if we don't heal him," Pony told them seriously, she rushed to one of the cabinets and began getting stuff out, an ingredient crusher, a mixing bowl, everything to make medicine with, even gauze, "what are you waiting for," everyone but Aizawa, the nurse and Pony left.

Aizawa stayed though, this was all a bit too suspicious for him, Recovery Girl also stayed, mainly because this was her office to begin with, it wasn't long before the other two came in and saw the homeroom teacher standing against a wall and the nurse waiting impatiently, "hurry up you three."

Asui, Bakugo, and All Might gave Pony the herbs and she began mixing them, and then when she was done grinding and mixing and she had a nicely made old style paste, she put it on the gauze before holding out her hand in All Might's direction, "his horn," oh that, All Might gave it to her. She went to work putting the horn attached back to the other piece still on his head, the duke org's eyes gained life to them, he hurriedly grabbed the horn and held it in place, despite the warnings not to move from Recovery Girl, while Pony got the gauze with the paste. She wrapped the horn while saying something that sounded like a prayer to herself, but nobody understood the language she was speaking, it wasn't English and it wasn't Japanese, but it sounded old and dark, like it was from a time long before quirks were even thought up, it was terrifying.

After she was done Zen-Aku finally put down his hand and let himself feel the exhaustion and fatigue of the day, he lost consciousness and fell asleep as everyone in the room looked to Pony, only Bakugo had the guts to speak, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT," or yell if you prefer.

Pony muttered, "you're lucky that lord Zen-Aku is still sleep," as she went to the sink to wash her hands from the gunk on them, normally she voiced, "I healed him using herbs that were made for our kind, specific horn based quirk users that were among the first generation quirk users."

Aizawa and All Might looked suspicious of that, Asui and Bakugo were about to question it too when Recovery Girl hummed, "that is true," the four turned to her, "in the first generation there were some quirk users that had horns, they were different from others and had their own way."

"This journal has been passed down from generation to generation," Pony said motioning to it with her head while she dried her hands, "that first generation is gone and that is all that remains of their teachings, but when someone from the first generation quirks showed up to school…"

"Then you decided to take the initiative and introduce yourself to him, at the UA Sports Festival I noticed you asked if you could talk to him in private," Aizawa stated and then informed after noticing her questioning glance, "that horn is a big weakness to have while in a fight Tsunotori."

"Not so," All Might popped into the conversation, "I must admit, to lift him up in the heat of the battle I had to use quite a bit of strength, almost broke the weights to pull it off, and I used a lot of my power, too much it would seem, because I lost control and broke his horn off by mistake."

Aizawa sighted and turned to leave, "well thanks to him and Bakugo's plan working, they passed the practical, and received top marks on the written, when he's done resting up that horn of his I'll make the announcement about who all gets to go to camp," he walked out after saying this.


	8. Camping Under A Full Moon

Path to Becoming a Hero

Chapter 8

Camping Under A Full Moon

After what felt like a very long weekend, full of recovery and regularly applying gauze and the mixed herbed paste on his horn, Zen-Aku was fully ready to go back to the classroom and receive the stares and concerns of his fellow students, and the glance his way by the bombing porcupine. They all showed genuine concern for him, which wasn't bad by any means, but the stares he got from Aizawa and Bakugo was unnerving to him, like they just learned that he could now be defeated, it would take an unbelievable amount of power to do it, but the top in the class can lose. So in full summery, Aizawa and Bakugo now think they can beat him should the need ever arise to do so, his class now thought that he needed them to coddle up to him and show their concerns and be nice about it, and the only one that actually does care would be his friend, Tsu.

Of course then you had the situation of who'll be going on the camp trip and who won't be, "e-everyone, I'm looking forward to hearing all your stories of how fun camp was,' Mina choked out through sobs as her, Denki, Sato, and Eijiro were all looking depressed at not passing.

"Maybe they'll end up letting you go, maybe there's a last-minute twist or somethin'," Uraraka stated reassuringly to help them calm down and not bring the mood in the room down, more so than it already was what with four out of the entire class failed, being beat by class B by three.

"They said whoever failed the exams would have to skip training camp and live in summer school hell, we didn't pass the practicals so we're doomed, don't you understand Uraraka, or did 13 SUCK ALL OF THE BRAINS OUT OF YA," Denki asked with a yell and poking her in the forehead.

"Ease up Kaminari," the boy calmed down after Sero's words, "I'm not sure I'll get to go, either, our team only passed thanks to Mineta, I got knocked out and since we don't know how they're scoring stuff, I might have flunked," to be honest, that is probably the most sense he's made yet.

The door slammed open and everyone scrambled to their seats, "once the bell rings you should be in your seats," Aizawa said as he opened the door, he walked to the podium as everyone set there and waited, "morning, unfortunately there are a few of you who did not pass the final exams. So when it comes to the training camp in the woods," his drawled out voice turned less so, "everyone is going," and just like that Uraraka was right, "the good news is that no one bombed the written exam, five failed the practical badly, two teams, of course, and then Sero failed as well. For the practical battles, the teachers made sure to leave a way for students to win, otherwise you never would have stood a chance, we were interested in observing how you each worked together and approached the task at hand," Aizawa said bluntly.

"But didn't you promise that the teachers wouldn't be holding back," Ojiro asked with a concerned look on his face, they all must have thought they were further along in their training than what they were, so it makes sense that he'd be concerned about not actually winning against them.

"That was just to get you on edge, besides, the training camp will focus on building your strength, those who failed need those lessons the most, we were never going to separate you, that was just a logical deception we used," Aizawa informed them all with a weird grin, getting mixed reactions.

Most of those that failed were overjoyed at this, Iida though, "he tricked us all, I should have expected this," he shot up from his seat with his hand raised, "Mr. Aizawa, this is the second time you've lied to us, aren't you afraid we'll lose faith in you," judging by the teacher's look, no.

"That's a good point, I'll consider it," he won't consider it, "but I wasn't lying to you about everything, failure is failure, we've prepared extra lessons for the five of you, frankly they'll be far tougher than what you'd face at summer school," at that the students looked depressed.

After school everyone stayed behind to discuss some things, primarily the trip that was covered in a training camp guide that they were given, Zen-Aku through his out the first chance he got, he survived in the woods for years by himself, and then later on survived with Merrick. The only thing of interest to him was when Toru said, "guys, since we're off tomorrow and we finally finished exams, I have the best idea, why doesn't class 1-A go shopping together," the rest of the class was on board except for a few like Bakugo and Todoroki, they declined.

Then they all turned to him as he stood up and began to walk out of the room, he was stopped by Tsu placing a hand on his shoulder, "what about you Midoriya, do you want to come shopping for the camping trip with us," she asked and everyone else fell silent to look upon his answer.

"No, I have other things to do," Zen-Aku stated before walking out of the room and began to walkdown the hall towards the lower floors and out the building, yet he didn't go home, instead he decided to head straight for the Dagoba beach park, stopping just before the entrance to it. Nobody was around him or in his line of sight at least, so he walked forward, darkness surrounded his body and with it his dark wolf armor came forth to replace the UA uniform, usually he would instead just come here to train using his crescent blade and katas, but today he decided against it.

He walked to the center of the beach and sat down in the sand in a cross legged position, he decided to try an old trick he had learned along with Merrick as they had traveled the world, eventually Merrick and he stopped by a pizza place called 'jungle karma pizza' to eat something. Of course Zen-Aku was cloaked and kept his head down as they ordered their pizza, that is when their server, a young man by the name of Theo, noticed that Zen-Aku wasn't human, therefore knew that he shouldn't be there, so after he left he returned with a slightly older man, RJ. It was then that they learned that they were the latest power rangers who recently defeated the latest threat to the earth, and the man had the spirit of the wolf that allowed them to actually fight with mostly hand to hand combat, of course the two were impressed by what they were told. Sadly they could not get any aid with their combat prowess like that, they may be veterans but they always had room to grow, this was because they were not part of their order, so training them with more advanced combat was prohibited, yet that didn't stop them from giving advice.

It was this advice that he was using now, inside his mind he can play out what he wishes to see, or what he can let play out how it could possibly go if he was realistic enough for it, so he looked within himself and set up the arena, well, more like a forest clearing to be precise, and got to work. He went over the fights he had with the various forces, the Nomu, Bakugo, Todoroki, Merrick, Stain, All Might, Gran Torino, there were many that he had fought, few he had lost to, and out of all of them it was the fight against All Might that aggravated him the most, because he had help. He wasn't too prideful in thinking that he could have won without help, but if he had went all out from the start, pulled out all the stops and didn't have to hide his true power, than he could have won, or at least put up a better fight, but as it stood now that was just wishful thinking on his part.

Mental image training wasn't going to well though, fighting the Nomu had left him defeated, but in much better shape than last time since he didn't have to hold back his power as much, Bakugo and Todoroki were easy to beat as usual, Merrick he won often enough but lost just as much. Gran Torino was fine with his losses to the duke org, still complained though, Stain was honored to fight him again, but every time they clashed they were left in a near dead state, and finally All Might was still dominating him, his full control over One For All truly was in a league in of itself. Though he did have the power longer and it has adapted to the symbol of peace far longer than it had with the duke org so at least the loss wasn't all that bad, considering that he was still learning things from the losses, like how to lower the power output with one limb while raising it with another. He was slowly getting much better at it and pretty soon he'll have much better control over the overall power that he has added to his arsenal, and yet at the same time he has a long way to go before he can compete on All Might's level of control, but until then he will train his mind and body.

* * *

Day of training camp

This was the day they were to leave for the training camp, and most of them were not happy at all, most of all Zen-Aku, since he could have gone there and did something to stop Shigaraki from causing so much damage to that damn mall, thankfully nobody was killed, but many were hurt. He had been able to get in and make some of the structure collapse which caused some of those with quirks to help those that couldn't use them, mainly the students helping save civilians while Shigaraki escaped, what he was even doing there was still a mystery to everyone from the mall. The main student who was targeted was Iida, Shigaraki had him by the neck but he was able to keep calm until Uraraka came to the scene, surprised the villain with a simple touch and made him let go of Iida, which sent off a chain of actions that led to him collapsing part of the mall. The students were praised but the security and location of the training camp were to be held secret from everyone except a select few, nobody knew where they were going until they got there, and then not everyone knew if where they were going was going to be safe afterwards.

"Now that you've finished up your first semester at U.A. high, it's time for summer vacation to officially begin, however… don't think this will be months of rest for you heroes in the making, at this camp we'll push you to go beyond your limits, you're aiming to become plus ultra!" Aizawa stated with everyone gathered around with his usual enthusiasm, Zen-Aku was to the side of the group and leaning against one of the buses, a small black satchel being the only thing different about him and the only thing he was taking with him on this trip, the others didn't ask about it.

"I heard some of class A is taking extra courses, does that mean that they actually failed the final exam, huh, that must be so embarrassing, especially since you're supposed to be so much better than my class, all of you must be wallowing in shame," that Monoma guy raved on like a lunatic.

Zen-Aku just appeared behind him in an instant with his dagger flute out pressed against his jugular, "it would appear that I have to constantly beat this lesson into you," his voice was like a feral growl to the boy's ears, until he put the dagger away, "but I'll wait until we get to camp." He backed up from behind the boy and went ahead and got on board the bus in the back, nobody said anything as he got on, so he didn't see the murderous look that Monoma was sending his way, or the disappointed look that Kendo was giving the boy for angering the duke org.

The only one to speak after that was Pony, "you are truly the dumbest person on the planet Monoma if you think that he wouldn't say or react to what you said, so I'll be praying for your soul for when we get to camp and he destroys you," she bowed her head and got on class B's bus.

Zen-Aku stayed on the bus and waited while everyone got on board, the bus started and they headed out as Aizawa spoke, "here's the deal, we'll be on this bus about an hour before our first stop, make sure you stay focused," he looked back and saw that nobody but a few were listening.

True to his word after an hour they stopped to stretch their legs, and then headed straight to their actual stop, yet other people thought that they were there to just stretch their legs again, Mineta was running around looking for a bathroom while Zen-Aku leaned against the bus and waited. "You don't really think we stopped here so you can stretch your legs do you," Aizawa asked as he heard some of the chatter that came about as they had stopped, sadly though nobody else seemed to be ready for the camp that was to come, those poor unfortunate fools for thinking that.

Car doors opened and a voice came from it, "heya Eraser," out came cat themed heroes in dresses, one in pink and the other in blue, it was the one in pink that spoke up, introducing in a showy fashion that reminded him of the rangers, "your feline fantasies are here, say 'meow'!"

"Purrfectly cute and catlike girls," they each did movements as they said their lines, the pink one stretched her arms out wide as she turned, then winked before putting her thumb and index finger together, then when the blue one said her line with forming a heart then pawing the air like a cat.

For the finally they did a group pose, "you can call us the Wild, Wild Pussycats," the pink one had her wrists together and outstretched to her far left while her legs did a lunge, the blue one kept the paws in a pose with the left one bent at her side while her wright was in the air, right leg straight and left leg up and bent so her foot was touching her right knee.

Aizawa spoke to the befuddled group of onlookers, "these are the pro heroes you'll be working with at the summer training camp, they're a four-person hero team that specializes in mountain rescues, Mandalay, the one in pink, and Pixie-Bob, the one in blue, everyone say hello."

They did, then, "we own this whole stretch of land out here, everything you can see, the summer camp you're staying at is there at the base of the mountain," Mandalay stated and it wasn't far off at all, yet people began to suspect why they stopped here if their camp was over there. "The current time is nine thirty in the morning, if you're fast about it, you might make it there by noon," the students all ran for it, "kitties that don't make it there by twelve thirty won't get any lunch," while the students ran, Zen-Aku walked forward so that he could jump off the railing.

"You should have guessed students, the training camp…" Aizawa chastised in a dull voice as Pixie-Bob appeared before the door to the bus with her claws out, "has already begun," she used her quirk in an instant and made the rock mountain come alive, flooding the mountain-side with rock. Just as the duke org was about to jump over the mountain slammed into his back sending him crashing down and into the cold ground before raising out from the dirt as if he was a zombie coming from its grave, then proceeded to pop his joints at having a mountain slammed into him.

"Good news," Mandalay called down once everyone else reached the bottom as well, "since this is private land, you can use your quirks as much as you want to, you've got three full hours, you should be able to make it to the facility in that time, that is if you can get through the beast forest."

Mineta decided to run off and find a secluded spot to take a leak while Zen-Aku just calmly walked out of the eye line of the group since they were distracted with Mineta screaming and running away, only to be saved by Iida when a sudden rock monster brought a fist down onto that spot. The others weren't done yet as more and more of them came out of the ground or forest and began attacking, Zen-Aku just calmly walked forward while summoning his crescent blade, slicing as many rock creatures that were attacking him as possible before they reformed and attacked others. The duke org just continued on as if he was never targeted and only moved from his path when it was dodging an incoming rock attack or destroying a creature with a crescent wave or a blast of org lightning, only stopping when forced to do so by a creature that got in his way about to attack.

Zen-Aku made it to camp at eleven that morning while the others were still going to be a while, the cats and Aizawa were there waiting on him, "I take it you left everyone else to fend for themselves," the duke org only nodded to Aizawa's question, knowing they would be fine without him.

Instead he strode forward and went inside the camp building before the others could arrive and cause a big fuss, only making note that there was a child that had been hanging around the cats, "who's the child," he asked in his usual gruff voice, this place was aggravating him for some reason.

"Oh, this little guy, he's actually my cousin's son, he just lives with us now, don't be shy Kota, say hi to Midoriya, you're going to be around him and the others for the next week," Mandalay introduced and was trying to ignore the hate in the boy's eyes for who was standing before him. The duke org just grunted and moved around the boy with hate in his eyes that would get him killed eventually, like many others in the world and those beyond, but he needed to think on some things, these people can only help him to a point, he needed his own regiment here.

After all was said and done, they finally got to the camp at around 5:20 that evening, they came out of the woods not looking so good, Bakugo was holding his left arm, Iida was dragging his left foot, everyone else just looked super fatigued and ready to topple over at any time right now. "You said it would only be like three hours," Sero said as the duke org walked out of the building and leaned against the column, that held a shelter just before going inside the front door, "and why did you leave us behind, we were supposed to travel through the forest together."

"I guess we timed it on how long it would take us, sorry," Mandalay said oblivious to their actual plight, "and I never said you had to stay together, it would have been preferable if you did, but since he's already here and arrived before noon, he got to go ahead and eat, sorry about that."

Pixie-Bob laughed like a cat to get their attention, "I thought it would take you kids even longer, but you did much better against my dirt monsters than I thought you would, you guys were seriously great," she pointed to Iida, Todoroki, Bakugo and jabbed a thumb behind her as well. "Especially the four of you, it seems like you've had quite a bit of experience," she licked her lips a bit before pouncing with kissy face, "I call dibs on these kittens, I'll groom them myself," basically harassing the other three while the duke org just twitched his left eye in annoyance.

"Mandalay, has she always been like this," Aizawa stated with his usual bland tone while the other students looked to be as white as sheets at the cat fussing over the students, STUDENTS, as if she was wanting them to be her lover or something, she needed to control herself better.

"It's gotten much worse lately, she's at the age to take a mate," really, she's looking to a group of kids to take a mate, does this hero society really except under aged people getting with overaged people, or it could be that she's reflecting what she's looking for into the four and is acting out.

"Enough playing around, get your stuff off the bus, once your bags are in your rooms we'll have dinner in the cafeteria, after that you can bathe and sleep, tomorrow your training starts in earnest," Aizawa stated and chose to ignore the groans of pain, "you better get a move on."

Zen-Aku had already eaten and chose to ignore the food offered here in favor of fasting, taking on the mental training and other ways to better his control and power instead of eating regular human food, the cats were asked not to tell the others though, they didn't bother to ask why.

Later on he was in the bath with a few of the boys while all the girls were on the other side of a wooden wall, everyone else was relaxing until Mineta spoke up, "the food and stuff is fine, but to be honest, I'm hungry for somethin' else, just one little wall, a few pieces of wood, and heaven awaits. A bath full of boobs and babes ready to be seen by yours truly," he hugged the walls, "bathe, my angels, how stupid of them not to stagger the times that we'd be naked next to each other, I hope they never learn from their mistakes," it was too much for the little bastard.

"You're to stop this at once, Mineta," Iida demanded as he stood from within the water, marching over to the boy, "what you're doing is demeaning, for both the girls and yourself, it's shameful behavior," Iida was going to be too late to stop the idiot from doing what he was going to do.

A light shown from the face of Mineta, "now I know why I have this quirk, it's because walls are meant to be climbed," he began to annoyingly race up the wall at a fast pace, and it was only thanks to one person at the very top that he was stopped from going over the wall to peek.

Kota emerged and stopped the advancing boy, "before you become a hero, you should learn how to be a good human," with that said he swatted the hand of Mineta and made the little shit fall backwards and off the wall edge, falling butt first into Iida's face to knock him down as well.

"Mineta really is the worst, isn't he," the voice of a girl said from behind the wall, causing Kota to focus attention on who spoke, "thanks so much, Kota, babe," the voice of Mina yelled out to the boy and caused him to turn around fully, "we owe you one," that was a mistake on his part.

The sight was too shocking to the boy and so recoiled back and fell off of the wall dividing baths, Zen-Aku didn't let him go very far, catching him in a blur of shadow and landing safely on the ground, and yet the boy was still out cold from the shock, so took him to his guardian instead. Since he was just passed out he quickly got dressed in something descent, black shorts and black t-shirt, and took him to her so that she could watch over him, it was a rookie mistake looking back to see that sight, the boy hadn't even hit that age yet, so the sight shouldn't have really shocked him.

"The rush from the fall likely caused him to faint, thank you," Mandalay thanked after he was brought to her, he was placed on the couch in the room to sleep, "Eraser warned me one of you boys was a little girl crazy, so I stationed Kota up there to keep watch," she placed a rag on his head.

"That's the danger of teaching kids our age, though it would have helped if he was told not to look that way, it was the glance that caused the boy's balance to slip from him," Zen-Aku stated as he leaned against a wall and watched the boy sleep, "though his dislike of heroes also hindered his concentration."

Mandalay looked surprised for a moment, "not too surprised you picked up on his obvious glares, but how did you guess it was because he didn't like heroes," she asked, her tone made it sound like she was surprised, it made him forget just how little they thought about kid's intellect now.

"Despite my age, I've seen the eyes of people who hate heroes before, they looked a bit less intense than this kids," he let his words sink in before he spoke up again, "I'd say a traumatic childhood, parents were heroes that were killed, so he hates heroes because of that incident."

Again she looked surprised at his guess, "you're right, his parents died protecting citizens from some villain two years back, perhaps the most respectable way for any hero to die, but how do you even begin to explain to a child that his parents died honorable deaths," Mandalay asked.

"You don't, because you can't," Zen-Aku stated and received a look from Mandalay that asked him to explain, "kids don't understand the term 'honorable death', and he only understands that they chose random people over their own son, that is how he sees it at least," he tried to explain.

Pixie-Bob came in at that moment, "wow, a wild look and a smart mind, what else can you do," she asked to try and lighten the mood, she got two deadpan stares, "in all seriousness, that was well said and a brief yet thorough explanation of what's been going on with him," she commented.

"Though to be honest he doesn't seem to like us that much either, we are heroes, just like his parents were, you left that part out," Mandalay said to the duke org with a small sad smile, "and him being stuck with us because he has nowhere else to go doesn't seem to help the matter."

"He'll be fine eventually, but it will still take time for him to see past his hate," Zen-Aku stated as he began walking to the door and opened it, he stopped just before leaving and looked back to them, "and bring a good training management for the class tomorrow, especially me," and walked out.

* * *

Camp Day 2

It was 5:30 and the class was outside in their gym cloths, "good morning class," Aizawa said in front of the group, "today we begin the training camp that will increase your strength, our goal is to increase your skills exponentially so that each of you earns a provisional license. This will allow you to face the dangers that continue to fester in the darkness, proceed carefully, and look alive Bakugo," he tossed a ball his way, "try throwing that for me, when you first started school your record was 705.2 meters, let's see if you've improved."

"Oh I get it, we're checking our progress, a lot's happened to us in three months, maybe he can throw it a whole mile now," Mina guessed as Bakugo got ready to throw, he threw it with an impressive display of explosion control, the force caused many to shield their eyes from the winds.

"That was 709.6 meters," Aizawa informed, not sounding impressed at all, "you've had a single semester at U.A, and due to your various experiences all of you have definitely improved, but those improvements have mostly been limited to technical prowess and skill, with a slight boost in stamina. As you can see your quirks themselves have not improved much on a fundamental level, that's why we're now going to focus on improving your powers," he gave a sick smirk, "this'll be so hard you'll feel like you're dying, let's hope you all survive," but they were ready for it, somewhat.

It was at this time that the Pussycats entered again with Mandalay saying, "your feline fantasies are here," stretching her arms out wide as she turned and then winking before putting her thumb and index finger together, doing this with such enthusiasm it was blinding, "say 'meow'!"

The next line was from a girl called Ragdoll as she spun like a freaky cat top while saying, "allow us to lend a helping paw," ending it with a pose of looking high in the sky with her arms outstretched and her right leg up behind her, she was dressed in mostly yellow for her cat attire.

The next was a brute of a man called Tiger raising his arms slowly while saying, "we're champions serving up justice," then bent to the side so that his back was shown to them and flexed his arms to them, "with our tails," adding the last part like it was an important statement at the end.

"Purrfectly cute and catlike girls," Pixie-Bob said her line with the same gusto as her teammates while doing her motions of forming a heart with her cat paws before scratching the air to her side in a cat-like fashion before winking to them as well, and that was the last of the individual lines.

"We're the Wild, Wild Pussycats," Mandalay had her wrists together and outstretched to her far left while her legs did a lunge, Ragdoll had her legs in a lunge position as well, but she was leaning to the right side as if stretching but had both her arms out in an exaggerated way. Pixie-Bob kept the paws in a pose with the left one bent at her side while her wright was in the air, right leg straight and left leg up and bent so her foot was touching her right knee, Tiger had his right arm bent at an angle to his side and his left up and bent upwards, both hand making a paw pose.

"I'm Ragdoll and my quirk is search," the hero introduced herself while all four of them kept their poses, "I can look at up to 100 people and know everything about them, like their location and weakness," that was handy when it came to mountain rescue, and fighting if you're good at it.

"With my earthflow, I can create the ideal training ground for every student," Pixie-Bob stated while creating a little hill as a show of ability, though it could help in this situation and moving ground in a disaster, though she'd have to be careful of what she moved and where to move it.

"And my quirk is called telepath, I can give advice to multiple people at once," Mandalay stated, though that was all she could do, she couldn't actually set up a two way link with her power that would let people communicate where communication was not an option in any other way.

"The name's Tiger," the man that spoke up had turned his back to them and then turned his head to glare at them, "and I'm here to beat you guys to a pulp," well that was one person with clear goals in mind, this of course was sarcasm, never let it be said Zen-Aku lacks any sass in his mind.

They were all divided up and put to work doing different things, Bakugo plunging his hands in hot water to increase his sweat and then forming huge blasts, Todoroki was in a vat of water and using his quirk to regulate the temperature in hopes of accustoming his body to the hot and cold. Sero was continuously producing tape in an effort to increase his capacity, Eijiro was being his continuously with Ojiro's tail to help both of their quirks improve, Denki was running his electricity through a high powered battery to learn how to use larger amounts of electricity. Koda was doing vocal exorcises to expand his range and become less shy, Aoyama was continually blasting naval lasers to help with his stomach issues, Tokoyami was training with dark shadow in a dark cave to gain better control of his dark shadow since it gets that way in the dark. Uraraka was rolling around in a ball to help with her zero gravity to decrease her nausea, Iida was doing hardcore long distance running to improve his leg strength, Tsu was rock climbing to build strength in both her tongue and other muscles. Sato was lifting weights while eating sweets that lets him power up his quirk, Momo was eating high amounts of food while continuously creating something to decrease creation time, Jirou was smashing her earphone jacks against rock to strengthen them and improve listening quality. Mina was continually producing acid to strengthen acidity and her skin's durability, Mineta was constantly ripping off his balls to improve his quirk, Shoji was expanding his dupli-arms while searching for Toru who was working on her stealth, Midoriya was working out his muscles by doing exercises that was to increase his strength and stamina.

"Now on to the final kitten," Ragdoll said before turning to the duke org and used her quirk, she looked shocked after only a second, wide eyes opened and did not go back down, "HOW ARE YOU THAT STRONG, I CAN'T DETECT ANY CLEAR WEAKNESSES," she exclaimed and gained attention.

Bakugo looked over and scowled at her yelling that while the others looked over and were shocked at a pro hero yelling that, but considering he was the one that took down the hero killer by himself without using his quirk, they couldn't really say they should be surprised by that. First acing the quirk test, then defeating Bakugo easily in the battle training, after that defending everyone from that Nomu at the USJ, coming in first place at the sports festival, going against the hero killer and then not long after really fighting the number one hero in a hardcore match. They shouldn't really be shocked that a pro hero just exclaimed that he had a lot less work to do in the weakness department and building up his quirk than the others, he was so far ahead of everyone it made them want to train harder and harder to try and catch up to his level.

Zen-Aku though, chose to ignore the yelling and looks, "I don't need much help with anything, however I need to work on my hand-to-hand fighting technique, so if you could make some fortified mu ren Zhuang then I will be fine," he told them yet they instantly shook their heads.

"We are here to train your quirk, not improve your fighting ability only," Mandalay told him with crossed arms and a smirk on her face, "Tiger will be going against you in what he calls 'Tiger's Bootcamp'," said cat hero was smirking at the prospect, "only quirks are permitted to fight with."

Zen-Aku narrowed his amber eyes at the heroes before walking towards the brown clad hero, bringing out his crescent blade and waited for the hero to charge, soon enough Tiger got impatient and charged, it was clear that he was full of openings, yet his blade met air when thrust out. Tiger bent at an impossible angle to dodge the attack, but left his back open so when the duke org sliced his blade upwards directly after the thrust, sparks flew into the air as Tiger went spinning up and back before landing gracefully on his hands and feet like an actual cat, just bigger. Yet, Tiger still grinned and charged back in, his quirk making naturally more agile than he should be, so Zen-Aku shot a bolt of org lightning from his hand to throw the pro hero off balance, it worked for a moment and gave him enough time to shoot out a crescent wave to the pro. He barely dodged it and instead had to take a cut on his left bicep before a flash of shadow appeared before him while he was on his hands and feet checking his cut, how stupid could he be, forgetting something like not taking your eyes of your opponent in combat, the blade was to Tiger's throat.

"Not a bad match against Tiger," Pixie-Bob stated as she stepped up next, "but I think you need a bigger opponent," as she said that a lot of monsters born form the earth formed around him, and from the look of them they were reinforced with minerals from the ground, "and more of them."

It wasn't too long after that class B came to train as well, with another introduction of the full version of the Pussycats, even going into explaining what each one could do again so that the new arrivals could know what the kids would have access to during their training at the campgrounds. They all saw what class A was doing and all were shocked, but once they heard the screaming of a stone monster in the distance, and saw the out of breath Pixie-Bob, they knew that the duke org was over there, "good news for you Monoma, you get to live a little longer," Pony commented.

By the looks of the destruction being caused and the height of the explosions going on, it seemed that all of Zen-Aku's powers were being used, and from the looks of Pixie-Bob, they had been going on for so long that he's actually getting some training in on his powers and not fighting. Which means Pony telling Monoma he gets to live was not anything less than a miracle, because if they ever fought, Monoma will die a painful, bloody, agonizingly slow death that would make even the legendary Master Org cringe at the sight that would be the boy's mangled body afterwards.

Later on when all the training was done, Pixie-Bob finally passing out after the taxing day, it was time for food, but since Zen-Aku doesn't eat human food, he didn't prepare anything, nor did he eat anything, chose to use the fasting excuse again, though just snuck up and meditated. At least until Koda decided to run off and not eat anything, maybe it was Izuku's former self, maybe it was the memories of his traveling with Merrick, but he decided to follow the little kid to what he was sure would be a place to run away too when he felt like it, Koda must run away a lot. Though he also notice that the kid didn't really eat anything either, so against his better judgment, he signaled to Pony, who had taken it upon herself to watch out for him, to fix him a plate of curry and leave it around the corner, she did so and Zen-Aku picked it up and followed the brat.

The duke org heard the boy's stomach growl like a beast and silently walked up to beside him, Koda didn't notice the company until the plate of food was placed to his side, he jumped up and glared at the duke org, "no way, How'd you find this place," he questioned the one who followed him.

"Followed you," Zen-Aku stated as he turned and began walking away before stopping and looking back over his shoulder, "oh and nice secret hideout, personally I'd prefer a shed though, some are built with better insulation to help keep the heat in when the winter months come," he commented.

"I don't need advice from some wannabe hero who's too stupid to realize that trying to improve his quirk is dumb," Koda called back with such a heated glare that it reminded him of somebody he met once before, "all you people want to do is show off, so get lost and never talk to me!"

The duke org considered the boy for a moment before turning fully to face him once more, "the Water Hose Heroes must not have taught you too much before being killed, did they," he asked and watched the boy's eyes widen in shock from his statement, "I guessed from information given."

Koda looked down so that the red ball cap covered his eyes, "go away, everyone here's so crazy, calling people stupid names like 'hero' and 'villain' and then killing each other because of it, always focusing on their quirks, if they hadn't been showing off, they'd still be here, idiots."

"You may not believe me, and I don't really care if you do, but consider this," Zen-Aku stopped talking and let Koda face him when he spoke next, "the longer you take to accept that our society is based off of those terms you hate so much, the harder life will be for you, and those you grow to love."

* * *

Camp Day 3

The next day proved to be a special one, Eijiro, Mina, Sero, Denki, and Sato looked ready to fall over from their extra lessons, and Pixie-Bob looked a bit too energetic since she looked ready to fall over just last night, when asked about it she said, "it's been too long since I trained myself." Uraraka and Aoyama were scolded by Aizawa for only barely passing according to him, and told to get back to work, it was after that they were told about the 'test of courage', and that let the duke org think about what that would entail, probably something nowhere near enough to scare him.

So here Zen-Aku was fighting against freshly made rock monsters with even more reinforcements, though they still stood no chance against Zen-Aku, and the longer training goes on the closer night comes, and he just loved this night, it was a full moon, and his peak power. As the day drew on he felt the moon coming and the power within him slowly rising until it got to be sundown, which is when they all decided to stop for the day as Pixie-Bob dropped into a waiting Ragdoll's arms, who immediately took her inside the camp to rest up after her own 'training'.

Now it was finally nighttime and the full moon was out and about, came a 'test of courage' with the classes going against one another, "perfect, we've filled our bellies and cleaned the dishes," Mandalay began enthusiastically, just not as much as her friend, "it's time for," she didn't get to finish.

"A totally awesome test of courage, we're gonna win," Mina exclaimed and Eijiro, Sato, Sero, and Denki all greed with her, even shouting with her on the last bit, but they missed the look in Aizawa's eyes, oh great, another twist about what was going to happen tonight.

"Not so fast, it pains me to say it but the remedial class will be having lessons with me tonight instead," Aizawa stated and the others fell into despair, "sorry, your training during the day didn't impress me, so I'll be using this time too," he grabbed all the remedial class and dragged them.

"Okay, so, class B will start out as our scarers, when their in place class A will leave in pairs every three minutes, there are tags with your name on them at the far end of the route, your goal is to collect those," Mandalay again announced with too much enthusiasm, especially for her.

"Now, those that are scarers aren't allowed to make physical contact, use your quirks to terrify the others got it," Tiger had a big blow up message behind him, "the winners are the creative students who make the most people piss their pants," we did not at all need that visual.

"WAIT," Zen-Aku called out, and the instructors turned to him, "I request that class A goes first in scaring class B, I already have a plan in mind, but to do it I need the light of the moon as it is here soon, so may we please be the first ones to scare," the duke org asked, he knew what to do.

After a brief whispering conversation between Mandalay and Tiger that took about a minute, they turned around and shouted, "GO AHEAD," with devious smiles on their faces, they must have hidden cameras somewhere to watch what was about to go down, hope they enjoy the show.

"Class A, follow me," Zen-Aku commanded and walked into the forest with the rest of his class walking in behind him, they walked until they were about the halfway point, "this looks like a good spot," he muttered before raising his voice, "alright, I'm giving you all jobs to do, do them. After that we'll give the signal to let them know we're ready, after that we wait until class B arrives and put my plan into motion, get to work," he handed them all a piece of paper with a list of their jobs on it, and all the supplies were made, gotten, and put together just before signal was sent.

Unlike what would happen with class B being scarers, the entire of class B were walking through the woods, it was like nothing they were use to, they didn't know what was happening or why it was so dark, until they spotted it, it looked like a stone alter that worshiped the moon in some way. A large stone coffin with chains wrapped around it was there, but that wasn't the scary thing, the scary thing was that big nose monster that looked to be just standing there as if he was gloating on such a huge discovery, it was freaking them out, along with the ominous music in the air. Then the light of the moon shown through the hole of one of the poles on the alter and focused the light to hit to reflecting dials on the coffin, it fed into the third one and broke the lock on the chains to break loose, the chains clattered to the ground with a rattle and the coffin opened.

Out of the coffin rose the form of Zen-Aku as smoke surrounded him, his amber eyes shining in the moonlight, he just rose waist first out of it, getting a lot of the class B to already squeak and want to run, but Kendo held her class together, despite shaking and wanting to leave herself.

The nose guy spoke now, "Zen-Aku, you are once again free to destroy Org enemies," his voice was smooth and not as nasally as what one might expect, but at the same time, creepy with a hint of danger to it, and that is when the rest of the duke org came from the coffin standing tall.

It was then that he jumped out of it and the class seemed to see time freeze as he had the moon as a backdrop, many of the class screamed then and there, before time unfroze and in a burst of shadow the duke org came hopping all around them until they were all huddled together out of fear. He stopped before them as the nose guy chuckled to himself in the background, Zen-Aku spoke like he was growling like a true wolf, "I have been awakened to carry out 3000 years of vengeance," he put his hand out in front of him threateningly, "and eat all of the children."

Class B all screamed like little girls and ran like their butts were on fire just to get away, the one who screamed loudest was Tetsutetsu, Kendo almost fainting and had to be carried by him, and truth be told, you could smell where quite a few people had pissed their pants on the way out.

They barely registered the nose guy saying, "this is working out so much better than planned," but the one who said it was no longer a guy, but a girl who was taking off the head to reveal it to be Momo who had an apprehensive smile on her face from having to scare her friend like that.

"You kidding, that was awesome," Toru exclaimed as she came out of the trees with Jirou and Shoji, Tokoyami was carrying out a passed out Aoyama and Koda with the help of dark shadow, it was too much for those two, "you were so scary that you sent chills down everyone's spines."

"Good, that was my intention," Zen-Aku stated as he began walking back to camp, the rest of his class walking out behind him, Momo and Todoroki staying to get her out of her Nayzor suit, but they caught up quick enough to walk out with the rest of the class, seeing class B shiver in fear.

"You know," Mandalay stated once she noticed them all exit the woods, "I think we don't need the other class to go and try to scare all of you considering you just made everyone but one… scratch that you made all of them pee their pants, impressive," she complimented the rest of class A.

"Although, did you have to traumatize all of them so badly," Pixie-Bob questioned them as she poked the vine-haired girl in the cheek, only for her to release more bodily fluids, "scratch that, there's trauma, and there's breaking them, and I think you broke them, you win the gold medal."

"Let me guess," Zen-Aku was about to say something sarcastic when everything went down, he smelled the smoke in the air before Pixie-Bob's entire body glowed red with an energy that started pulling her in the direction of a big lipped woman, the duke org acted on instinct. Just before Pixie-Bob was about to reach the large block covered in fabric she was holding a black blur got between them and pushed the slab, felt like metal, away with his foot and skidded to a halt with the blue heroine in his arms stopping just before reaching her comrades as well. Pixie-Bob jumped out of his arms with a backflip as the other three of her teammates took their stances with her, Ragdoll getting the message that it would be pointless to be at the other end of the trail and since came back before the others arrived from out of the woods, they were ready.

Zen-Aku rose and tore off the fake armor set that Momo made for him to wear in that play and summoned forth his actual armor, it came to him in a dark shimmer, the other students looked at him stunned, forgetting that you should always keep your eyes on your opponent, like he was doing. The two that were attacking them right now were strange, both looked like males, but one had overly large lips with chestnut colored hair, the other was a lizardman that had Stain inspired gear on, though his weapons were clearly his own from the looks of it, a sword and a large, wrapped weapon.

"It would seem that our sneak attack only went half-way through," the chestnut haired villain stated as he hoisted his metal slab over his shoulder and got ready to fight, "and everyone is here except for the teachers, this isn't going according to our information at all, what do we do?"

"It doesn't matter," the lizardman said dismissively, "how are you this evening, UA High School, we are part of the Vanguard Action Squad of the League of Villains," that seemed to rattle a few students seeing as how they remembered the last time they were attacked by the league quite well.

"If they're here and talking about a plan, than it stands to reason that they're in the woods somewhere, hiding and waiting for a plan to strike," Todoroki stated as he got in a fighting stance, and noticing the trees on fire, along with a cloud of pink smoke rising through the trees.

Zen-Aku had a sudden thought, "these villains might have sent someone to get a good vantage point, the best one is where Kota currently is," the others looked to him in shock, "Mandalay, me and you will go rescue Kota while the rest of your team stays here to fight these villains."

"Who are you to give orders," the question came from Bakugo, now of all times the bomber had to pick back up and start speaking again, "I say that we go searching for the villains that want to attack us at our camp, then," Bakugo was interrupted with a fist to his gut to knock him out.

"Shoji, you carry the mad bomber back to camp with you," Zen-Aku tossed the knocked out boy over to the multiple armed student, "Momo is class rep so she's in charge of all of you until you get to where Aizawa is, same as with Kendo from class B, she's in charge of that section of you." The duke org's crescent blade came out was ready with a plan of counterattack at once, but Mandalay seemed hesitant to leave her team alone to fight off the villains as more could be around here, "his family already failed him once, don't make the same mistake as they did."

That obviously got her moving as she then went into high gear, "I agree with Midoriya's plan, Tiger, Ragdoll, and Pixie-Bob should stay here and fend off these villains while Midoriya leads me to where Kota is, you are not to fight these villains, you are to only defend yourself if attacked."

"Right," the group called before they began running together through the forest to get to where the main building was, only Tsu looked back though, she wanted to make sure that her friend wasn't going to be in over his head, he was strong, strongest in the class, but just how strong?

"Hold tight, this will get us there faster," Zen-Aku stated as he grabbed Mandalay by the left arm and began walking, the others wondered why for a moment before they both began glowing purple, lightning struck from both sides and they disappeared from in a shimmer of purple glow. The heroes and villains were all shocked that he could do something like that, there was nothing in his files from UA that he could do something like that, not that the pussycats saw anyways, and the villains were never told that he could do something like that, just who was this guy.

* * *

At Kota's hideout

Kota was sulking by himself as he always does, thinking long and hard about something Mandalay had once said to him once, about a hero that would sacrifice himself for him, Kota couldn't see anyone doing that though, "nobody like that really exists," he muttered before noticing the fire.

It was a azure blue flame producing black as night smoke, there was also pink smoke on the other side of the forest, that is when he heard Mandalay's voice in his head, "Kota, I hope you can hear my voice, hurry up and come back to camp, just run and get back home, fast!"

It was too late to run though, because it was then that Kota noticed the large cloaked man behind him, he had on a white mask, "I came up here scouting for a nice vantage point, and here I find someone who's not on our list," the man cast a large shadow over the boy thanks to the moonlight. "By the way, nice hat, kid, I like it, why don't you trade me for this lame mask, huh, they made me wear it 'cause I'm new, said they couldn't get a shipment of the good ones in time," the man took off the mask and showed his face to the boy who began to run away from the man. "Oh well," the man said before jumping over the boy and landing on the slope of the mountain and hopping off of it in the direction of the boy while drawing back his fist, "I think you and me should have some fun up here kid, ready," muscle fibers forming over his skin as he said this.

Kota knew this man, it was the same man who killed his parents, the villain known as Muscular, and he was heading straight for Kota, and just as he was about to drive his fist through the boy, a shadow came from nowhere and grabbed the boy by the back of his collar, tossing him backwards. Kota was caught in the arms of Mandalay, who was ready and only skidded back a foot, but there was still some considerable amount of power in that throw, along with dust and rock kicked up from the blow to the ground from the muscle enhanced villain hitting the ground instead of Kota. Zen-Aku stood straight and faced Muscular without taking his eyes from the villain while Mandalay made sure that Kota was alright, the boy was fine but a little shaken up because of him facing the one who killed his parents, Midoriya had watched the news report, so the duke org knew as well.

Muscular raised his fist from the ground and swatted away the dust to get a good look at who interrupted his fun, "awe, I know you, Zen-Aku right," the duke org nodded, "you know, the main boss wants to meet you personally, something about a mask and great power or whatever. Though, Shigaraki wants you dead and gone, the first time I've ever seen those two butt heads on anything was over you, so anyone that wants to take the initiative and kill you can, or bring you back to the big boss, so personally I'm just going to kill you," the villain grabbed his cloak and tossed it. "First a little torment, show me your blood," the villain exclaimed as he charged for the duke org, who used shadow phasing and ran along the edges of the mountainside, only for Muscular to stop in an instant and charge along the path that he took and with a fist cocked back, struck for Zen-Aku.

The duke org barely had enough time to get his crescent blade up in time for it to take the bulk of the force from the strike, but the power was still great enough to embed him into the rock of the mountainside, and force him to cough up some blood, he hadn't felt hits like those since the USJ Nomu. In a matter of seconds, the villain was upon the duke org again intent on grabbing his face, but with a flick of his crescent blade, Muscular was forced to dodge the blade instead of attacking, giving Zen-Aku enough time to get out of the mountain's side and jump after him. The villain attacking had to jump back to avoid the blade, that means his muscle fibers can be cut through and thus giving the duke org an edge in the fight, and with the full moon out tonight, that increases all of his powers and strength to the point of being able to handle all of One For All.

If he could, he'd be smirking under the mask that was his face, instead he just used his shadow phasing to get close to Muscular for a horizontal swipe, the man jumped back some to dodge and then jumped forward with incredible speed with a fist cocked back to strike with a mighty punch. Zen-Aku brought up his crescent blade and used the flat of the blade to take the brunt of the attack, it caused him to be sent into the mountain side and get lodged within the stone and rock, but he was quickly able to get out of the trap and flipped over his imprint just as Muscular came in. He created a large crater in the mountain's side and kicked up dust that went everywhere, the duke org jumped over him and got away from the mountainside and brought out his dagger flute as well, when muscular came out of the destruction he caused, and spotted his target, he glared.

"Is all you know how to do dodge, I wanted you to show me your blood or make me bleed as well, from the way the boss talked about you, you almost seemed to scare him, but I'm not seeing why here," Muscular tried baiting the duke org as he increased his muscle mass more before charging. Zen-Aku brought up his dagger flute to stab into Muscular's wrist before it could grab him, but with the increase of muscles came the increase of speed, he was faster than his ancient eyes could follow, so the villain got a hold of his torso with his oversized hand and squeezed. "Don't worry, I forgot to ask a question so I'm not going to squeeze the life out of you yet," yet he continued to add pressure to the grip on the duke org, "do you know where Katsuki Bakugo is, I'm supposed to get his approximate location for Shigaraki, he wants the boy."

"So that's what he wants, that boy gave off a wild and overly aggressive feeling, I knew his attitude was going to bite all of us in the ass one of these days," the duke org commented, his arms were pinned to his sides as he was lifted up and held over Muscular's head.

"I'm not hearing you say you know where he is, so I'll just crush you before I ask those two," he gestured over towards where Mandalay was standing protectively in front of Kota, "then I'll kill them until I found out where he is," he rose his other hand, "now it's time for you to die."

"You know, I'm stronger than I look," Zen-Aku commented before pumping all of One For All into his body and kicking Muscular in the face with his right foot and sent him flying back, letting go of the duke org in the process, but the villain wasn't done yet and righted himself quickly. Then charged in again, this time against a full powered Zen-Aku, who was able to use his enhancements with One For All to actually see Muscular this time and duck under the left cross and counter with his own uppercut before striking the same elbow into his stomach.

The villain was tougher than he thought though, "what, is that all you've got, I thought you were stronger than you look," he delivered a double axe handle to the back of the duke org's head and sent him to the ground, but he rolled out of the way of the incoming boot that stomped on that spot. Zen-Aku rose up and grabbed onto the follow up fist and delivered a left palm strike at Muscular's jaw before using the same hand to crush it into his neck and following that up with an elbow strike to the maw as well before letting go of the arm and striking the villain's exposed eye. That wasn't enough to stop him however, and since he now knew where the duke org was, he was able to grab a hold of the back of his head and toss him into the mountain while charging and slamming his fist into the hero in training's stomach before tossing him away by his head.

Zen-Aku rolled with the throw until he stopped just in front of Mandalay and Kota, with Mandalay standing in front of her young charge in defiance of the villain, with the duke org struggling to rise, "this guy is too strong, we need a plan, or get him to Eraserhead," Mandalay suggested.

"Not needed," Zen-Aku stated as he finally rose to stand in front of the two and in the path of a rapidly growing Muscular, "you villains seem to be under a misconception about me," he empowered every part of his being with One For All as he felt the light of the full moon shine upon him. "You think I'm a regular hero in training just like the others," he readied his crescent blade in attack mode and charged it with all his power available, "but I'm far different from the others, because I don't mind getting my hands dirty," he brought his blade to his left side with his right hand.

"SHOW ME YOUR BLOOD," Muscular screamed as his muscles bulged to their max and charged with a right fist drew back ready to strike, as he slammed his fist forward the duke org brought his crescent blade over and blocked the fist, but the power behind it was still enough to push him back.

The duke org wasn't deterred though and in one swift motion swung the flat of the blade he was braced against with his left hand down a bit and let the massive fist past his defenses, it hit his left shoulder with the force of a cannon, breaking it and making his arm useless right now. It let him act though, because his crescent blade was below that striking, so he used all the power in his right arm to slice through the wrist of the villain's arm and continue going until it was struck deep into Muscular's gut as well where Zen-Aku called out, "Crescent Wave!" With the enhancement of the full moon and the power of One For All, the wave was bigger than he expected, nor did he expect the other fist that came from the villain to slam into his jaw, the resounding force caused a blowback of power had the villain slam headfirst into the mountain.

Mandalay was the only reason that Kota wasn't blown off the mountain from the force of the power unleashed, but nobody was able to catch Zen-Aku as he was blown off the mountain, the part of the mountain that had a slope just steep enough to cause major damage to anyone. As he was rolling down, he could feel his legs begin to break first, knees hitting harder since that was all he could use to try and stabilize himself without the use of his arms, his left arm especially, it was getting a bit more bruising than it was before thanks to the hard rocks he was hitting. His ribs were more than likely broken as well, he felt worse than he did when he faced off against Stain, and the fall wasn't even over yet, it was either sheer luck or survival instinct that spared his horn any breaks from the fall, not to mention that this was doing nothing for his back.

When he finally landed it was in a big heap on the bottom, stuck in a little crevasse between two big rocks, he was barely breathing and blood was pouring from his armor in a steady cascade of crimson down his form, it was from his stubbornness, he assumed, that he remained conscious. Given time he could heal, but he didn't know if he had time, more than likely Mandalay had already alerted everyone about Bakugo being a target, and him either being a target for death or taking as well, he had no idea about who might find him first, friend or foe, hero or villain.

"You look terrible," a voice said as shadows began approaching, six shadows to be exact, three swordsmen, one black and green cybernetic looking monster, a gold monster with a face not even a mother could love, and a woman in all purple, it was the woman who spoke up as they walked.

"What did you expect, that Animus told us we'd find him here and that he'd need our help, we arrived late, we apologize," one of the swordsmen stated, the black biker looking one with an emblem of wings on his chest, from his voice, he meant the apology, though his face showed nothing.

"Yes, though I must say that the explosion could be seen from everyone in the surrounding area, we must hurry if we are to get back home in time," the swordsmen who also had a shield and a dark wolf armor on, he was dressed like a knightly power ranger, though he clearly wasn't one.

"Then let us be quick about this, we don't want the other heroes to know we're here," the swordsmen in white with red on the front of his skull stated as he clearly kept watch around them, but he said the other heroes, meaning that there are a few options in regards to what he said.

"Yes, let's get going, Koragg, if you would do the honors," the horror show offered to one of them, the power ranger knight stepped forward and stuck his hand out, he said something in another language, "Uthra Norqua Ozarro," and an intricate purple circle formed around his prone form.

The last thing he heard as the darkness enveloped him and his being was from the voice he had yet to hear from, the black and green cyber monster, "now that this is done the rest of us should help out here, find the league of villains and take them out, we know our assignments, let's go."

* * *

A/N:Yes, I am introducing more than just the six already seen, and those that were just shown were Ecliptor, Villamax, Diabolico, Koragg, Tenaya 7, and Deker. There are at least six more that will be introduced next chapter, and let me know who you think all of them will be.


End file.
